ADnD: Dragons of Flame/Any%

Overworld

The overworld sections of the game are so random that it doesn't make much sense to make videos for them. It's best to just study the maps on https://nobusuma256.com/html/kouryaku/adddof/adddof.html. Any enemy encounter can be expected to take around 10-12 seconds and lead to potential damage. It's therefore most of the time worth to make a detour to try and avoid the encounter. A few remarks can still be made:

• Learn the basics of the game's RNG.
• Right at the start of the first overworld section, immediately going down will very often result in an early encounter since all three enemies will spawn below you. There are two ways mitigate this risk. The first is to immediately start pressing up (you will only push against the tree and not actually move up). This will ensure the first enemies all spawn above you. You can then slowly walk down, while trying to keep them on screen. This is a bit slow and chances are one or more of the enemies will soon wander off-screen. The other method to consider is to not move at all when the game begins. The three enemies will now rapidly spawn in random positions around the screen edge. This will likely allow you to move down faster than if the enemies spawned above you. But it's of course also riskier since enemies can spawn below you.
• In the upper part of the map, where it's mostly open, try to walk past enemies above or below (and not on the left or right side of them). See the RNG-section for why.
• Once you're below the river, try to continue moving down (at least in small steps). Saving all the vertical movement for when you need to enter the correct path through the forest will likely result in enemies spawning in your way.
• Once inside the forest, it can be worth considering manipulating some enemy spawns. The best way to do this is to push against a tree in the direction you'd like to spawn enemies in.
• There are a few alternative paths through the forest. Learn them. Taking a detour is a cheap price compared to getting an encounter (and avoiding enemies in the path is not very likely due to the space constraints.
• In the second overworld section, it's probably best to not move when the gameplay begins. This will hopefully spawn enemies in favorable locations, allowing you start moving down.
• There are several alternative paths in the second overworld section worth learning.

Dungeons

As opposed to the overworld, there is no RNG whatsoever in the dungeons. The enemy movements and actions only depend on the player's actions (and possibly local timer(s)). The route through the dungeons therefore consists in one part of finding the shortest path and in one part where to take damage in the most advantageous ways, while avoiding time-consuming menu trips as much as possible. In the videos demonstrating the recommended route, the value of two RAM-addresses are shown, the room number and front character's HP. The former is also shown in maps below, while the latter is provided in a spreadsheet.

Health management

Since there is no RNG in the dungeons and the execution is mostly easy to perform, a detailed route can be created with the places to take damage. The general ideas with the route presented here (and reflected in the videos below) are:

• Avoid menu trips for refilling health or swapping the front character with healthy characters in the back. A menu trip will always cost several seconds. Tanking damage everywhere saves a little time, but nowhere near enough to compensate for additional menu trips.
• Avoid additional menu navigation. There are some alternatives that have been considered, but the ones tested have cost more than time than what would be gained by being allowed to take more damage:

- Combine the forced menu trip when Raistlin is moved from the front position to also cast some magic. E.g. a sleep spell against a troll to avoid taking damage.

- Combine the forced menu trips against Ember with casting some health restoring spell.

• Plan for characters to have very low HP when being killed by strong enemies, while trying to avoid the next character to take big damage.
• Come in to the fight with Verminaard with high HP to allow for a few unintentional hits without having cast any healing spells.
• Raistlin can't die, since he's required for the fight against the dragon Ember.
• Sturm deals the most damage of all characters and needs to be in front when going into the fight against Verminaard.

Note however that this assumes entering the dungeons with full health. If minor damage (<79) has been taken in the overworld, the best is to compensate by not taking damage against the traps in the first dungeon (the Secret Path, room 40). If more damage has been taken, it can become more problematic to evaluate the best course of action. If the end result is facing Verminaard with less HP, there will be no time loss, but the fight will require more precise execution. The other possibility is either to use Goldmoon's healing or to put Tanis in front instead of Sturm. Putting Tanis in front costs time, but might be faster than navigating the menu to Goldmoon's healing spells.

Is this the fastest possible route? No. You can construct a route that tanks more damage and gets to Verminaard with the bare minimum of HP. The execution of such a route is not more difficult, but the Verminaard fight requires better execution. The time save by pushing it to the limit this way would be ~1.5s. For a demonstration of such a route, see the TAS.

First dungeon (Secret Path)

The following map (created with the help of https://nobusuma256.com/html/kouryaku/adddof/adddof.html) shows the possible routes in the first dungeon to reach Pax Tharkas:

The violet route is essentially equal to the yellow route (the violet is 2 frames faster). The red route is however the fastest of the three (216 frames faster in TAS conditions, although with slightly worse enemies along the way). The following video demonstrates the red route:

Second dungeon (Pax Tharkas)

The following map (created with the help of https://nobusuma256.com/html/kouryaku/adddof/adddof.html) shows the possible routes in the first dungeon to reach the end game and the bosses:

The blue route is inferior to the red route because it has much tougher enemies along the way and just doesn't work with the tight health management required to avoid additional menu trips. The following video demonstrates the red route:

Some room notes:

• The Goblin in room 81 appears to be weak to low attacks and doesn't seem to fire any more projectiles if attacked by a steady stream of low blows.
• A menu change is required to change the first character at the Goblin. Other than keeping Raistlin alive until the meeting with Ember, Sturm deals considerably more physical damage, which allows the fight to go faster.

Bosses

Some notes:

• After the dialogue with Ember, buffer the start button. This will prevent the dragon from breathing fire before your first hit connects.
• Ember can be damaged by physical attacks and a few of the magical attacks other than the magic missiles. However, the magic missiles deal by far the most damage and are an absolute must in a real-time speedrun (TAS is a slightly different story).
• Verminaard's first attack is always a high one that can be ducked under. If you do that, he becomes very aggressive when you get close, which doesn't leave much room connecting with your own attack.
• Subsequent attacks can be either high or low.
• Sturm deals by far the most damage against Verminaard, 20 damage per hit. Since it's a fairly long fight, you therefore absolutely want Sturm as the first character.
• No magic attacks work against Verminaard.
• While Flint and Tasslehoff are so small that they can always avoid Verminaard's magic attacks, they don't deal enough damage to make up for it (other than in a casual game or in a marathon setting).

Second dungeon (Pax Tharkas)

Bosses