A Shrunken Adventurer am I
From A KoL Wiki
A Shrunken Adventurer Am I is the Fall 2023 special challenge path, introduced on August 15th, 2023. This path adds variant rules and restrictions to an ascension run. Its description in The Bureau of Reincarnation reads "You are so tiny."
For up to date information, see the Discussion Thread.
Restrictions
- All monsters look really big to you.
- You have a maximum food capacity of 2, and a maximum booze capacity of 1 (you become overdrunk at 2).
- You can't use anything that cleans or expands the stomach or liver capacity.
- You may only drink size 1 booze items:
- You're too small to drink something so large.
- Your base Muscle, Mysticality and Moxie are all limited to 1.
- To be clear, you still gain stat points, and you advance in level as normal. There's just an invisible effect that limits your stats.
- When you break the Prism or drop the path, the effect goes away, and your stats become what they would normally have been.
Divergences
- Your adventure begins with "Jumbled in the Bungle."
- Your Campsite is replaced with Your Campground From a Bug's Perspective.
- Food and Booze items (but not spleen items) give 10x stats and adventures.
- Stat requirements on equipment do not apply, even very high-level equipment such as items found in Dreadsylvania.
- Upon freeing King Ralph, every 1 fullness you had will be converted to 10 fullness, and every 1 drunkenness you had will be converted to 10 drunkenness.
- This means if you free King Ralph while falling-down drunk at 2 drunkenness, you will still be falling-down drunk at 20 drunkenness after freeing him.
- All sources of stomach and liver cleansing are disallowed. Even the ones that are standard-restricted.
- Aug. 16th: Roller Coaster Day!: You're so small that everything feels like the top of a roller coaster. This day seems pretty useless from your perspective.
- designer sweatpants: At your current size, you can't produce adequate sweat to sweat out any booze.
- spice melange: placeholder
- Ultra Mega Sour Ball: placeholder
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Strategy
General
- Because your stats are so low, you can't rely on regular attacks, as both hit chance and damage will be very low.
- If you have access to a June cleaver, remember that its attacks always hit.
- As an alternative, use skills that don't require you to attack, like Saucestorm.
- Be wary that Naughty Sorceress removes all beneficial effects on the start of the combat against her. This includes stat increases granted by path-specific potions. You will likely need some other source of raw stats to survive the confrontation with her. This might be a serious problem in Hardcore.
- The World's Best Adventurer sash provides a bonus of up to 100 to each stat, based on the number of ascensions.
- NOTE: Although the Confidence! buff's tiny (x0.2) bonus is worthless for your stats, remember that without it the Sorceress will have hundreds more HP and immunity to stunning and staggering.
- Percentage-based stat buffs (like, say, phorcefullness from philter of phorce) are nearly useless, because your stats are limited to 1.
- Absolute increases (like Mr. Accessaturday or Power Ballad of the Arrowsmith) are still useful, however.
- You can find some items that help with this by adventuring in the path-exclusive areas in your campground as they increase their stat bonuses with the player's level, acting as an alternative mainstat.
- Similarily, percentage-based stat debuffs like Beaten Up can be ignored, but debuffs with absolute decreases like Thrice-Cursed or Majorly Poisoned will still affect you.
- Due to all of your stats being defaulted to one regardless of level, gaining stats other than your mainstat serves no purpose.
- Both stat gains and adventure gain from foods and booze are multiplied, and so items such as Mrs. Rush or red rocket will help with experience gain.
- Mrs. Rush effect is limited by 111 substats after multiplication, making it less useful.
Astral gear and consumables
- An astral hot dog is too big for you, so don't take the astral hot dog dinner!
- While you can't drink more than one astral pilsner before getting falling-down drunk, just one still gives you 110 adventures at level 11+ (plus one more from Ode), making the astral six-pack a good choice for turn-gen.
- Usually, the astral belt is a good choice, but +ML is difficult to survive on this path. You might consider the astral pet sweater, or an astral ring if you're relying on spells for damage.
Class choice and IotM seeds
Some items have seemingly random effects, which actually depend on your class. This specifically means when you get a survival knife from the MayDay™ supply package, and which monster drops a pocket wish if you fight it while having the Just the Facts skill. The table below does not give a complete list, only monsters that you'll fight during a normal (but speedy) run without having to go out of your way, with a mix of early- and late-game monsters. For full information on other aspects of the seeds, please see their respective wiki pages.
In short: Seal Clubbers have good wish monsters and access to Batter Up!, but no survival knife. Disco Bandits get a knife on day 1 and have decent wish monsters, which may put them over the top for Softcore. Turtle Tamers and Saucerors get their knife in time for Hardcore but their wish monsters are a little awkward.
| Class | Survival knife? | Pocket Wish |
|---|---|---|
| Seal Clubber | No | broodling seal, conjoined zmombie, fantasy bandit, oil cartel, multiple The Hole in the Sky monsters |
| Turtle Tamer | Day 2 and 3 | demonic icebox, oil cartel, possessed wine rack, The Big Wisniewski, multiple Twin Peak and The Penultimate Fantasy Airship enemies |
| Pastamancer | No | demonic icebox, L imp, pygmy witch surgeon, dirty thieving brigand |
| Sauceror | Day 2 | Frozen Solid Snake, Bob Racecar, Knob Goblin Harem Girl, Lord Spookyraven, monstrous boiler |
| Disco Bandit | Day 1 and 3 | basic lihc, Lord Spookyraven, paper towelgeist, swarm of fire ants, shadow devil |
| Accordion Thief | No | ancient protector spirit (The Hidden Apartment Building), blackberry bush, Copperhead Club bartender, gluttonous ghuol, lynyrd |
Softcore-specific advice
- Competitive runs on this path only take a single day, and your stomach is too small to eat a key lime pie. You can get one additional fat loot token by fighting a fantasy bandit five times, and a second additional token from the 8-Bit Realm.
- There's no need to pull booze, as you'll be drinking an astral pilsner. As for diet, a "Tier 4" Cookbookbat recipe like a Deep Dish of Legend is likely your best choice.
- Stat restrictions on equipment do not apply on this path - you can equip anything and everything.
- For example, a Disco Bandit could pull and equip a Covers-Your-Head to become essentially untouchable.
- Keep in mind, however, that the hat and pants slots are unavailable during some parts of some quests.
Rewards
- Finishing an A Shrunken Adventurer Am I run while it is the current special challenge path -- between August 15th, 2023 and November 15th?, 2023 -- gives players 50 (in Normal) or 100 (in Hardcore) extra karma points the next time they visit Valhalla.
- Players will receive a Thwaitgold Fairyfly Statue upon defeating the Naughty Sorceress.
- Players will also receive a residual chitin paste upon finishing a run.
- Players in Hardcore gain the stainless steel equipment for their class.
