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How To Win As An Adventurer

Updated March 2024

As an Adventurer, you’ll be taking a Keeper or similar unit and trading in the workforce & building aspect for a nice house with stable and storage space. But you’re still going out to conquier the realm. Without training gear, crafting stations, or significant minions to back you up, it will be a Challenge.

Hopefully, this will help.

The basics

Keeperrl adventurer mode RPG is hardcore and old style.
It features permadeath. If you die, your save file is deleted. Very unforgiving. One wrong move and it is over very quickly.
Realistically, you won’t beat a map first time you play it (unless you are an expert).
You can face maps generated by another player’s dungeon game.
You are not guided through a story. The story line is made by you.
Nobody has checked to see if the keeper maps are “fair”. You will need to use your own initiative.
If you beat a map that has no wins against it, you are probably the first human in the world to ever do so. You are on your own.
Some of the maps seem virtually unwinnable, but time and again people have found they can still be cracked.
Unlike most modern RPGs, there is nothing forcing you to level up before facing the final boss.
If you try and storm the enemy dungeon at level 3 wielding a knife you will die. Don’t be silly! Don’t complain! The game will let you do it though.

The game set up

Map selection is the single most important choice of the game.
Choose keeper dungeons that someone else has already beaten for a better chance. Look at the stats on the campaign screen.
Scout out the keeper maps you wish to play to get a feel for them.

Staying alive and exploring maps

Rest your cursor on all enemies to judge their stats and level before attacking.
If your enemy has higher defense and attack stats than you, they will hit you harder thana you will hit them. Unless you have some way to recover or otherwise change the odds, you should run away.
Alternatively, find somewhere to hide like a tree or passable furniture, make sure the enemy cannot see you, and use the h key take cover, hopefully escaping thee enemy’s pursuit.
If you think the enemy has a ranged attack, avoid lines of sight where it can shoot you or throw potions at you.
Conversely, if you gain a ranged attack, use it for all it’s worth, especially on slower enemies or those without ranged attacks.
When you need to heal, sleep on a bed somewhere, use a first aid kit, or use a healing potion

Game Plan

The game plan may look something like this:

Level 5 - Kit up on all the friendly tribes
Level 5 - Level 6 - Take out all bandits
Level 6 - Level 8 - Take out ogres and orcs and harpies and zombies.
Level 8 - Level 9 - Take out all lizard men
Level 9 - Level 10 - Kill Cyclops
Level 10 - Level 12 - Wipe out the mini dwarf tribes
Level 12 - Level 14 - Take out minor villains
Level 14 - Level 15 - Major villain 1
Level 15 - Level 16 - Major villain 2
Level 16 - Level 17 - Major villain 3
Level 18 - Level 20 - Take out enemy keeper dungeon.

Kitting up

Visit as many friendly tribes as you can find at the beginning.
Collect gold from your allies, they will usually let you take it (Maybe they want the forces of evil dead too?)
Pay for shop items before leaving shops, or the entire tribe will be offended.
Take the most powerful weapon only. Drop the rest. The same goes for each armour slot.
Friendly tribes are not at all interested in buying goods off you, they just don’t do that.
Look out for speed boots, stat-boosting gear, and a telepathy helm, these are all very good.

Minor tribes

Neutral and hostile tribes provide bonus score, XP and loot.
Dark elves and gnomes: Shoot to declare war. Loot.
Dark elf lord: Look out for an artifact weapon like a silver sword to slay undead!
Dwarves: Some survivors of the dwarven tribe may exist in lower dungeons but will be hostile. Use for XP/Score.
Vampire Lord (in his coffin), Minotaur, etc: XP. Loot. Only if you can get the advantage in combat.
Cyclops, driads, other minor tribes and creatures. XP. Loot.

Equipping yourself

Equipment is different on each map.

Important potions: invisibility, speed, blindness, sleep, slowness, healing, poison
Important scrolls: teleport, armour enchantment, weapon enchantment, flies, deception, fire sphere
Decent mushrooms: Damage, Defence, Regeneration
Weapons: Sword & shield, or Axe with bow.
Armour: telepathy helm (best), speed boots, otherwise the best stats you can find
Jewelry: resistance rings (poison, magic, cold/fire), regeneration or defense (possibly night or elf vision?) amulet

Line of sight

Potion throwing enemies and archers: Shoot them, avoid direct lines of sight or hit them with slow, sleep, blindness or poison
Night and elf vision can let you see and engage enemies before they can see you
If you know where someone is, but can’t see them, try shooting or throwing through that position

Collecting Magic

Potions, scrolls and mushrooms are an important way adventurers can use magic, especially if they’re melee-focused or their spells are on cooldown. Get as many usable ones as possible.
They are light to carry.
Armour enchantment - Choose a good piece of armour and remove the rest to target the enchantment at the remaining worn armour.
Try to keep a teleport spell for emergencies.
Try to get an invisibility potion to bypass tough points, whether getting in to assassinate a Leader or escaping when things don’t go so well.
If you want to loot potions and scrolls from monsters then you must kill them quickly, before the monster uses those items itself.

Making war using magic

The magic items available are different on each map. This forces you to improvise.
Going invisble is your single best move, but folks can figure out where the jerk who attacked them was. Go invisible to avoid fights. Speed is also great, since it lets you move and then attack (but not attack twice, or attack-then-move).
Blinding enemies with potions seems to be like going invisible but the potion has to hit your target.
If you can’t afford to go invisible, fast or blind them…Put them to sleep, slow them down or poison them (these are weaker potions, but don’t mock them).
- If the enemy cannot heal the damage or cure the poison, it’s a guaranteed kill. Poison the impossible target and lead it on a merry chase.
Scrolls: teleport (You need this whenever you are about to die). Other scrolls may come in handy.
Enchant up your best weapon and armours. Summoning fire elementals can help with pesky elf- or dryad-inhabited forests or other flammable areas, and flies won’t do much but can flank enemies (reducing their defense) and block attacks aimed at you
Use damage mushrooms when you expect to need a buff.
Don’t let yourself die when you still have loads of magic options available to use.

Progressing onto the Keeper dungeon(s)

Systematically work your way up from the weaker tribes to the tougher ones until they are all dead.
Leave the Keeper (if he is at all difficult) until the last.
Before you do anything else, kill all the keeper’s imps so he can’t arm any more traps or improve his armory any further.
Tempt them out of the dungeon by knocking down their front door
Shoot them when the come out to investigate! (Very occasionally there are no bows and arrows. Throw stuff instead).
With all the imps dead, there is now a limit to the number of traps you will face in the dungeon.

Night beasts

Kill the keeper’s night animals if you need xp. Right outside the dungeon entrance is the prime spot to do this.
Once you have killed any of the keeper’s army, reinforcements may come in from off the map, if the keeper remembered to auto-accept immigrants before retiring.
Intercept reinforcements before they enter the dungeon and you will have a supply of untrained and un-equipped monsters to level up on.
Werewolves are the worst of the keeper’s night explorers. Be careful if you meet one.
The price you pay for this is that eventually, the keeper will be left with no night animals and a full population.

Accessing the enemy dungeon safely

It is not normally time to take on the enemy army or keeper yet.
Invisible opponents: Usually, you have 3 options - go invisible yourself, run, or die!
Running is the best option because invisibility spells have a cool-down.
Get the enemy to use all his invisibility potions up during the mid-game.
Web trap: You can still fight from within the web. Teleport if you are webbed and attacked by stronger enemies.
Poison trap: Works in your favor if you have a poison resistance ring
Surprise, alarm and panic traps: Trigger the trap and run away again. Come back later.
Undead: They are tough. Behead/dismember them, ideally near a hazard floor (once blinded, they can wander in and die).
Unarmed traps: If you discover the enemy’s workshop you may find unarmed traps. Take the boulder and web ones for later.
Loot: Potions, scrolls, mushrooms especially. Find the labs and storage rooms and empty them of all the useful items. Check corpses for these items after killing enemies.

Facing boulder/web combos

If there is a boulder trap with a web trap in front and you get webbed, you must use any teleport spell immediately. Without that you will die. If you already know that trap is on the map, then herd neutral or hostile tribes into it. They will die not you. Alternatively, trigger the trap using deception, flies or fire sphere scrolls.

Some maps force you to play “Indiana Jones” with the traps.
Smashing a sleeping potion over a boulder trap will send the trap to sleep, much as if it were a living thing.(not sure this still works)
Lone boulder trap: Often you are able to trigger the trap and then step aside. If not, treat it the same way as a boulder web combo and trigger the trap without stepping near it.

Using room based strategies

Some rooms have things to hide behind. Cages, beds etc. You can hide and sneak attack or just choose enemies to pick off that walk past.
Dining tables - This is a great place to visit. Kill the enemy when he gets hungry and comes for lunch - one by one.
Dormitories - Catch monsters in their sleep. When you have cleared the dormitory, pick off monsters one by one as they enter for a nap. Finally, if the Keeper is auto-recruiting, destroying the beds will do a good job of reducing their ability to do so
Forges - There is almost always a surplus of weapons and armour, but chances are the good stuff is in use. It’s still worth checking to see if Fine Iron gear is available and better than what you’ve got.
Jewellers - Amulets and rings. If any are available, capitalize!
Ritual rooms - Very common for creatures to hang out in here, and the rituals can heal folks with “Materialization” HP bars. May be worth attacking, but ideally best left alone.
Beast lairs - Often no need to kill the weak monsters in here. Werewolves and legendary beasts can cause a problem and are worth killing if you can.
Crypts - Undead Quarters, deal with as you would the living’s living space. ;-)
Weaken down the army as much as possible before trying to sort out the training room or library.
Libraries: Training area for spell-damage, but any bookshelf helps recruit casters.
Training rooms - Folks here are NOT fully operational, but the dummies can get in the way. If the Keeper’s auto-recruiting, destroying iron and adamantine dummies can reduce their ability to attract good units.
Flaming swords are good at burning rooms down during combat, once you have fire resistance.

Defeating the enemy army

Always consider your enemy before attacking. Rest your cursor on an enemy to judge their stats and level.
Orc shaman: Take them out ASAP to banish their spirits.
Pick them off one at a time.
Fight enemies in corridors in preference to rooms. With multiple enemies, you can fight one at a time.
Try to fix it so that you get the first hit.
Compare their stats to your own.
To be reasonably safe you need attack and defense about 10 points higher than your opponent.
Wounded opponents however, are normally safe to fight.
Also blind and sleeping opponents are safer, but hitting a sleeping enemy will wake them and anyone around.
When you are invisible, most enemies of a similar level are fairly safe to kill.
Realise when you are about to die and retreat. Use a speed potion if you need to.
Take being wounded VERY seriously. Never just keep on fighting.
Retreat and use a first aid kit. If you are chased, go for a speedy retreat and a heal potion.
Don’t heal yourself in battle, even with a heal potion.

Using the enemy’s population limit against him

Statues and thrones - Sitting on the throne summons as many defenders as can fit to challenge you. If you’re feeling like you can take on everything (especially if you’ve already dealt with the Keeper), find and sit.
- Conversely, if the Keeper simply is recruiting too many troops, destroying statues and possibly the throne is an option, and will reduce the Keeper’s population cap. Melee attacks will work, but scrolls may speed the process. Try scrolls of destruction or fire sphere.
Kill off the high level monsters and deliberately clog him up with useless ravens etc.

Winning the game

Killing the end boss is always dangerous. Don’t come this far and just rush it.
Use up your spare magic to weaken down the keeper’s army.
Send vollies of arrows into the keepers location (often a training room or library)
Don’t get too close to the keeper in his line of sight, or he may use a deadly ranged attack.
You can sometimes execute the tyrant keeper in a ranged attack shootout, although he may still have some army left and he will also heal himself.
When you turn up, the first thing he normally does is to go invisible for about 15 turns. This will wear off and has a large cool-down, so just retreat and come back in a few turns. Make sure you are wearing your telepathy helm if you have one.
Trap him if you can. Choose your moment and take your chance. Go invisible if at all possible. Speed and buff yourself. Go kill him to win the game.

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