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ID stairhop is a tactic whereby the player repeatedly ascends and descends a particular set of levels in the Infinite Dungeon for the purposes of collecting loot or, occasionally, finding a particular monster. This method is maximally efficient for collecting loot generated from floor drops: for each turn of stairhopping, the PC reveals ~20-30 squares of new floorspace to hunt for items. This method is also relatively low-risk, since only monsters generated directly adjacent to the stairs are capable of engaging the PC (unless he wanders off the stairs to pick up an item).

As with a number of other 'scumming' tactics employed by players of ADOM version 1.1.1 (or earlier), ID stairhopping was 'fixed' in 1.2.0; now items can no longer be generated in stair rooms in the Infinite Dungeon[1]. It remains a valid tactic for prerelease 6 and below.

There are several floors in the ID that are normally employed for stairhopping, depending on what the PC is wishing to find. Stairhopping between I1 and I2 will produce danger level 1 items, which include some useful low level armor, rings, waterproof blankets, and, most importantly, all spellbooks. Particularly for natural casters such as Wizards and Priests, the number of floor dropped spellbooks is considerable, and they may accumulate large numbers of spells quickly by stairhopping.

Another useful area to stairhop is between I3 and I4, as these floors will produce blink dogs. Blink dog corpses provide the extremely useful intrinsic teleport control, which is particularly important to casters, and speed runners, but generally worthwhile for any PC to obtain.

Slightly deeper into the ID, around I6, the PC will be able to find danger level 2 items, which include the always valuable potions of water, as well as the extremely rare amulet of life saving.

Finally, at substantially deeper depths, players often search I24-I25 for the prized ring of djinni summoning in hopes of obtaining a wish. It should be noted that this is a considerably more dangerous option, since the PC must successfully descend numerous ID levels to reach this point, meaning that the monsters they face will be considerably stronger. Furthermore, I24-25 are corrupting levels, so the PC will accrue some corruption while pursuing this.

In principle, any level of the ID can be used to generate loot. The only limitation on this scumming tactic is really the patience of the player. Low level players should avoid stairhopping as Strained! or even Strained, as this makes you susceptible to falling down the stairs and breaking your neck.

Special rooms spawning[]

There's another way for getting value from stairhopping. As no turn passes when stairs travelling player can repeatedly ascend/descend stairs with no risk of getting hit by monsters(even when they are adjacent to player - they will follow you though). Using this tactics you can wait until game generates special effect in the stairs room. This can allow you to raise certain attributes to 99(while lowering some others to 1 and reducing their potential to 1 as well). For example:

  • Learning to 99(and reduce Strength to 1 as well as destroy it's potential) - room with message "Images of books and comfortable chairs line the walls. Suddenly the images fade away!" raises Learning by 1 and reduces Strength by 1,
  • Appearance to 99 - room with message "This room looks like a spa with a mud bath. You are hit in the face by a glob of hot mud! Suddenly everything disappears!". It will decrease Appearance by 1 and blind player until player wipes their face(press 'F') - then Appearance increases by 2(for net gain +1 Ap). You'll need to pause stairhopping to wipe your face - this will take a turn so beware monsters that surrounded you by following your stairhops.
  • Charisma to 99 - room with message "The walls have mirrors with many distortions of your image. <Appearance specific message>. All the mirrors shatter!". Where depending on your appearance score it may say either "You can't stand the sight of your warped self" if your Appearance is lower than 19 or "You look great in all of them" if it's 19 or more. First variant reduces you perception, and second - increases Charisma instead. Both variants slightly damage player, but it can be negated by rooms with one-time healing effect - "The breeze accompanying you causes some ancient bones on the floor to transform into dust. You feel a sense of relief". You can get 19 Appearance from Spa-effect rooms.

Another curious effect is even though stair hopping itself doesn't consume time - the timers for stat training(and probably some others - like skill training) still count down. So you may experience stats increase(e.g. from herbs) while no time passes from stairhopping alone.

You can both ascend/descend by pressing the same key - 'h', this automatically uses best action on that tile - i.e. ascending or descending if you're on stairs. So you can just hold that button for infinite stairhopping, just make sure to pause when a Spa rooms happens to wipe your face, or if stats upgrade happens from herbs training - to eat some more herbs.

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