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[sudgy]

I've been playing a bunch of SLASH'EM recently, and I was wondering if anybody else plays any roguelike games on here.

[qmech]

I've tried Nethack before, but the interface is pretty tricky to get into.  I also suspect that it's not a good habit to start!  (These comments also apply to Dwarf Fortress.)

Is SLASH'EM easier to get on with than Nethack?

[sudgy]

I've tried Nethack before, but the interface is pretty tricky to get into.  I also suspect that it's not a good habit to start!  (These comments also apply to Dwarf Fortress.)

Is SLASH'EM easier to get on with than Nethack?

SLASH'EM is a harder version of NetHack with added features.  It's made for people who have overplayed NetHack.

I think the comments apply 100000000% more to Dwarf Fortress than to NetHack.  You only need to learn a few commands to be able to play NetHack (but not be able to do much, and not even get close to ascending), then you slowly learn the rest of them.

Also, the quidebook to NetHack specifically tells you to either call it "nethack" or "NetHack", not "Nethack"...

[qmech]

Also, the quidebook to NetHack specifically tells you to either call it "nethack" or "NetHack", not "Nethack"...

I swear my first version had "nethack", but the dastardly SLASH'EM website has "Nethack".

[Kirian]

I used to play quite a bit of nethack and hang out on rgn.  But that was nearly a decade ago.

[yudantaiteki]

I used to play huge amounts of Angband, and I was even on the development team for ZAngband for a while.  I won Angband twice, but I haven't played it in many years.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I've ascended in nethack once (as a Monk), and gotten to The Plane of Fire once as a Barbarian. That was a sad death. I'd been trying to not spoil myself too much until I'd at least gotten to whatever area and died there, so I didn't know the peril of using conflict there. I was using my quest artifact for levitation, and I missed the message about the levitation wearing off while jamming through the instances of "The fire elemental hits the fire elemental! The fire elemental is unaffected" a hundred times a tick. I walked into lava, but I had intrinsic fire resistance, so I only got stuck. I zapped a wand of cold down to solidify the lava, and tried to use it to solidify the lava all around, but I ran out of charges. (I should have Applied it instead, to hit the squares around me.) Then I dug down with a pickaxe to free myself, but the lava came back rushing in. I end up drowning. In lava.

[Grujah]

Never played nethack, I do like the idea.

I played for quite some time game called POWDER (link: http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about) which is a roguelike, and I had an apsolute blast. One things that I love is when games are a quite hard challenge, which cannot be said for many new ones, sadly..

[sudgy]

Never played nethack, I do like the idea.

I played for quite some time game called POWDER (link: http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about) which is a roguelike, and I had an apsolute blast. One things that I love is when games are a quite hard challenge, which cannot be said for many new ones, sadly..

Have you ever played the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2?  That is one of the hardest games I've ever played.  Up there with difficulty, is I Wanna Be The Guy and NetHack.  Also, beating Pikmin in 9 days with only 50 pikmin was hard too, but that was a self-imposed challenge, not how hard the game was.

[sudgy]

Oh yeah, I play NetHack on alt.org and SLASH'EM on crash-override.net if you guys wanted to try to watch me.

[Grujah]

Never played nethack, I do like the idea.

I played for quite some time game called POWDER (link: http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about) which is a roguelike, and I had an apsolute blast. One things that I love is when games are a quite hard challenge, which cannot be said for many new ones, sadly..

Have you ever played the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2?  That is one of the hardest games I've ever played.  Up there with difficulty, is I Wanna Be The Guy and NetHack.  Also, beating Pikmin in 9 days with only 50 pikmin was hard too, but that was a self-imposed challenge, not how hard the game was.

Thats "The lost levels, right?" I've heard, its on my "list", I think I'm gonna do Ghost 'n' Goblin next. My bro has beaten IWBTG, I never did.
My most recent "I gotta beat it" game was a little childhood pet peeve, Kid Chamelon. Finally managed to do it!

[Drab Emordnilap]

Thats "The lost levels, right?"

Yes.

[Titandrake]

IWBTG is hard, but also completely unfair. There are legitimate platforming challenges, but the amount of stupid traps that you can't avoid unless you know they're coming doesn't make it worth it IMO.

Super Meat Boy is hard + fair. VVVVVV is not that hard, but is still pretty challenging the first time through. I've heard that Binding of Isaac is essentially a modern roguelike, but I've never played it so I'm not sure.

[sudgy]

IWBTG is hard, but also completely unfair. There are legitimate platforming challenges, but the amount of stupid traps that you can't avoid unless you know they're coming doesn't make it worth it IMO.

I always just laugh at the unfair deaths.  It's like, "What in the world just happened?!?!?  HAHAHAHA!"  And those happen just once (usually).  (Note: I've never actually beaten the game, but I've played some)

[shMerker]

The whole "hard platformer" angle of IWBTG is really just a pretext to set up comedic reversals at the player's expense. Every screen is built on the same structure of training you to get through some obstacle, letting you have some success with it and some variations, and finally changing the rules right when you start to think you'll get through it. In that way it's got more in common with a Wile E. Coyote cartoon than any of the games it references.

[Tables]

If you like the hard platforming style of I Wanna Be The Guy/Super Meat Boy etc., a good game to check out is I Wanna Be The Boshy. As the name suggests it's an IWBTG spinoff, but many people agree it's a better game than the original - a lot more boss fights (which are a lot more fun) and the platforming sections are simultaneously harder and fairer, with fewer traps (although there's still a few of those). It's difficulty settings are also more varied than just 'more save points'.

Grujah: Can't you beat Pikmin 1 in like, 6 days now with the new tricks? And still only 50 Pikmin I think. I know it's a totally insane route, mind you - you end Distant Springs with like a 3 on the clock, if you play near perfectly.

[sudgy]

Grujah: Can't you beat Pikmin 1 in like, 6 days now with the new tricks? And still only 50 Pikmin I think. I know it's a totally insane route, mind you - you end Distant Springs with like a 3 on the clock, if you play near perfectly.

That was me.  As far as I know, ONE person has beaten the game in six days (and definitely not with 50).  He finished day 2 with a zero on the clock.

[Tables]

Hm, I'll look it up. Generally when people discover this kind of thing is possible, a number more people will do it as well. And sorry, I knew it was you. I just screwed up.

Edit: Looking just on youtube, I see a number of 6 day runs by different people. I reckon if I checked the usual Pikmin suspects on Twitch, I might even find more.

[sudgy]

Hm, I'll look it up. Generally when people discover this kind of thing is possible, a number more people will do it as well. And sorry, I knew it was you. I just screwed up.

Edit: Looking just on youtube, I see a number of 6 day runs by different people. I reckon if I checked the usual Pikmin suspects on Twitch, I might even find more.

Well, it was a while ago that I saw it.

[lympi]

While maybe not a roguelike by the strictest definition, FTL is definitely roguelike-like.

FTL is a spaceship simulation roguelike-like. Its aim is to recreate the atmosphere of running a spaceship exploring the galaxy (like Firefly/Star Trek/BSG etc.) In any given episode of those classic shows, the captain is always yelling “Reroute power to shields!” or giving commands to the engineer now that their Warp Core is on fire. We wanted that experience, as opposed to the “dog fighting in space” that most videogames focus on. We wanted a game where we had to manage the crew, fix the engines, reroute power to shields, target the enemy life support, and then figure out how to repel the boarders that just transported over!

It's half off right now for $4.99, Mac/PC/Linux, and it would be a steal at quadruple the price. Highly recommended.

http://ftlgame.com

[heron]

Heh, that sounds like Space Alert. (an excellent board game)

[Tables]

Oh, FTL is half price? I was considering buying that, but thought it might be a little too much at full price. Hmm...

[mcmcsalot]

Never played nethack, I do like the idea.

I played for quite some time game called POWDER (link: http://www.zincland.com/powder/index.php?pagename=about) which is a roguelike, and I had an apsolute blast. One things that I love is when games are a quite hard challenge, which cannot be said for many new ones, sadly..

Have you ever played the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2?  That is one of the hardest games I've ever played.  Up there with difficulty, is I Wanna Be The Guy and NetHack.  Also, beating Pikmin in 9 days with only 50 pikmin was hard too, but that was a self-imposed challenge, not how hard the game was.

Oh IWBTG, I have beaten it and actually don't find it very difficult, simply repetetive. I would call myslelf a super talented gamer but it just takes playing IWBTG over and over and over until its memorized and not too hard. Also the final bosses move set is ripped of of sigma from mega man x, so if you've beaten that its not too bad.

[heron]

So, I've been trying to get into roguelikes on and off for a few months, but the interfaces always confused me.
I started off with Angband; I don't think I even made it to the third floor of the dungeon.
Then I moved to NetHack, which was SO MUCH BETTER, but I still didn't really like the interface/game.

Finally, I found Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, which had a nice tutorial to get me to understand what was going on, is more accessible than NetHack, and is just generally great. I recommend it to anyone who would like to try a roguelike.

[Grujah]

So, I've been trying to get into roguelikes on and off for a few months, but the interfaces always confused me.
I started off with Angband; I don't think I even made it to the third floor of the dungeon.
Then I moved to NetHack, which was SO MUCH BETTER, but I still didn't really like the interface/game.

Finally, I found Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, which had a nice tutorial to get me to understand what was going on, is more accessible than NetHack, and is just generally great. I recommend it to anyone who would like to try a roguelike.

I recently discovered DCSS as well. (actually googled Jorbles or somebody and it came up).

It is quite awesome, hard, rewarding, easy to get in, well documented..

My best so far is Hill Orc Fighter of Beogh who got 3 runes, than just HAD to clear Vaults even though he did get the Vault rune, and I then pressed a wrong key and unwielded my weapon and engaged an ancient lich unarmed, managed to escape, then noticed what I did, killed the lich, healed, but lost my band of orcs somewhere in the process and than died to a warden a two convokers who summoned a shitload of monsters on me. 

[LastFootnote]

Although I've never gotten very far in nethack, I've played a lot of roguelike and roguelike-like games. I'm hoping that someday Sword of Fargoal 2 will be released, but I'm not holding my breath there. If any of you have a PSP or a Vita, I recommend Z.H.P. Unlosing Ranger vs Darkdeath Evilman for those who enjoy roguelikes and Prinny and Prinny 2 for those who enjoy very difficult platformers.

EDIT: Oh, and Spelunky for those who like both. Man, that is a great game.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

The soldier ant hits! The soldier ant hits! The soldier ant hits! --More--

You die... --More--

[Ozle]

Have you tried Rogue?

http://www.coredumpcentral.org/play.html

[A Drowned Kernel]

Anyone else ever get into Dwarf Fortress? I played it a whole bunch back in the day but then stopped for awhile. I recently picked up one of the newer releases and tried to see how far I could get. Halfway through the third summer, one of my immigrants who had lived in the fort for awhile revealed themselves to be a necromancer, animated a bunch of body parts that were in a refuse pile near my entrance, and killed almost my entire fortress before being subdued, and all I could do was be like, "well that's new."

[sudgy]

Anyone else ever get into Dwarf Fortress? I played it a whole bunch back in the day but then stopped for awhile. I recently picked up one of the newer releases and tried to see how far I could get. Halfway through the third summer, one of my immigrants who had lived in the fort for awhile revealed themselves to be a necromancer, animated a bunch of body parts that were in a refuse pile near my entrance, and killed almost my entire fortress before being subdued, and all I could do was be like, "well that's new."

I've played it before.  Not much though.

[heron]

Anyone else ever get into Dwarf Fortress? I played it a whole bunch back in the day but then stopped for awhile. I recently picked up one of the newer releases and tried to see how far I could get. Halfway through the third summer, one of my immigrants who had lived in the fort for awhile revealed themselves to be a necromancer, animated a bunch of body parts that were in a refuse pile near my entrance, and killed almost my entire fortress before being subdued, and all I could do was be like, "well that's new."

I've been playing a few months. Trying to get my minecarts to function properly.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

My only noteworthy DF accomplishment was colonizing a seaside volcano. Then I constructed a grand lavaduct to carry molten rock to the sea, and began to construct a massive artificial igneous island!

But then, you know, goblins. I may still get back into it someday.

[A Drowned Kernel]

My only noteworthy DF accomplishment was colonizing a seaside volcano. Then I constructed a grand lavaduct to carry molten rock to the sea, and began to construct a massive artificial igneous island!

But then, you know, goblins. I may still get back into it someday.

That's when you redirect the magma flow to double as your fortress defense. Couldn't possibly go wrong!

[popsofctown]

Never played a roguelike so I just downloaded DCSS at heron's suggestion.


MAN was that a small file..

[popsofctown]

I need heeeeelp who else has played htis

[DG]

I can recommend FTL as well. It's a good little time filler and cheap.

[mcmcsalot]

I need heeeeelp who else has played htis

Exactly how I feel when I play rougelike games

[popsofctown]

I need heeeeelp who else has played htis

Exactly how I feel when I play rougelike games

Needs a co-op mode!

[Ozle]

I need heeeeelp who else has played htis

Just played this, died at level 2.
Damn Green Rats

[popsofctown]

All the rats I've seen are red.  If you really did see a green rat, it is probably a high level rat that has a small chance of appearing on an early floor.

My highest score so far is 5556 on DCSS i challenge you all to defeat me!

[heron]

594524, died on Zot:3 to a green draconian annihilator with a bolt of lightning.

[jonts26]

This is a pretty fun but quick roguelike RPG.

http://www.kongregate.com/games/danielben/ernesto-a-quick-rpg

[Grujah]

468982 is my highest, still. (HOFi of Beogh). My highest non-pure-melee is much lower, 49795 (White DrNe of Kiku, died from stupid Orc Knight's bolt).

What do you need help with exactly, pops? What class(es) are you playing?

[popsofctown]

I tend to pick a random race, then pick a class.  It sounds like pure melee is OP? 


I can't figure out what fangs and claws means, i looked all over the abilities and mutation descriptions but couldn't find it. 


Is ther a diminishing returns where levelling up one skill high makes it harder and harder to level it up, or is the game kind of broken when you max out melee weapon proficiency?

[heron]

The main thing about leveling melee weapon skills is that it decreases your attack delay.
A weapons minimum delay is its base delay/2, rounded down to end in a 0, or 70%, whichever is lower.
So base delay 100% = min delay 50%, base delay 130% = min delay 60%, and base delay 200% = min delay 70%.
Note that the percent signs are misleading; I don't think it actually has anything to do with percents.
Each level of weapon skill decreases your attack delay by 5% until you reach min delay. Leveling past this point doesn't have much effect.

Fangs and claws and other body parts sometimes give you auxiliary attacks when you attack something. They also may affect which items you are able to equip or use.

Melee is good, but even a melee based character will want to delve into magic eventually for escape options.

Some combos you might want to try are Merfolk Transmuter, Draconian Wizard, maybe a Minotaur Berserker if you want an easy start.

[popsofctown]

Minotaur beserker is my highest scorer.  The start was too easy though, I found it kinda boring

[pingpongsam]

I see no one has mentioned Dungeons of Dredmor which has tons of replayability because of the role balancing.

Binding of Isaac is fun for being able to just pick it up whenever you like.

[popsofctown]

I'm too cheap to buy binding

[pingpongsam]

It routinely sells for 0.99 or less on steam which is how I got it and Dreadmor.

[popsofctown]

I'm not an active user of steam so I am not really able to catch when they have sales.

[Grujah]

I tend to pick a random race, then pick a class.  It sounds like pure melee is OP? 

Not OP, just easier to play/get into, as your survival is mainly based on big HP pool and scrolls of tp/blink, where you have to think more with other classes.

I do not agree with heron that even with pure melee you need spells. Heck, you will be wearing chainmail/platemail for majority of time (unless you find a dragon armor) and that makes casting nigh impossible. I'd much rather stick to pure melee and Evocations for various wand effects.

[popsofctown]

He did use the word magic.  Wands are magical.  Is there a wand of blinking out there?

[heron]

No, I really think that you want to train blink or swiftness or even haste on a melee character.
The benefits are enormous. Haste is just a massive buff to everything basically, and blink and swiftness make great escape options when you're in a pinch. I suppose if you need blink to escape then you should have run earlier, but it's still good to have.

[popsofctown]

OH! big question.  How do I change my name? I put Xed in as my name when i first started playing but I can't figure out how to use a new name for new characters.  All my characters are named Xed

[heron]

In the main menu, click the enter your name field and you can change it. This also lets you have multiple characters at once.

Also, just cleared Lair with my Grey DrWz of Sif Muna, so yay.

[popsofctown]

I'm still trying to beat this game for the first time!

[heron]

I'm still trying to beat this game for the first time!

Sadly, same. I took a long break after my Zot: 3 death in annoyance though. And this run is looking really good; I will start casting Lehudib's Crystal Spear and Ice Storm soon, and those are really good spells.

[popsofctown]

I drank a potion of mutation and it gave me claws! and poison resistance, so now I can eat kobold meat

[popsofctown]

what does Zot: 3 mean?

[popsofctown]

I discovered a hidden room by accident during one run when my scroll of teleportation put me in a room that was walled off from everything else on the floor.  Is there a good way to discover those without a scroll of magic mapping?  You could reach it using the staircase in the floor below, but if I had passed by that one I probably would have assumed it led nowhere special

[popsofctown]

If you denounce a religion, will the god try to find you and kill you later or something like that, or have you lost very little as long as you don't return to that religion that run?

[popsofctown]

Apparently Terence was wearing a cursed scale male when we fought.  No wonder he lost >_<

[Grujah]

No, I really think that you want to train blink or swiftness or even haste on a melee character.
The benefits are enormous. Haste is just a massive buff to everything basically, and blink and swiftness make great escape options when you're in a pinch. I suppose if you need blink to escape then you should have run earlier, but it's still good to have.

Meh, wands and scrolls.

Though, I did lose once on a very good run cuz I banked most my Blink Scrolls for a treasure trove that was.. shitty.

OTOH, how do you skill spells on a Wizard? What do you skip/use, from starting book, at least?

I drank a potion of mutation and it gave me claws! and poison resistance, so now I can eat kobold meat

I like drinking those in start, if they turn out good, great, if they don't, well, at least I died early.

I discovered a hidden room by accident during one run when my scroll of teleportation put me in a room that was walled off from everything else on the floor.  Is there a good way to discover those without a scroll of magic mapping?  You could reach it using the staircase in the floor below, but if I had passed by that one I probably would have assumed it led nowhere special

Yes. There is always 3 stairs down and 3 stairs up, on every floor. If on a floor there are only 2 steps down, that means that one of the up-steps on lower floor lead to a secret room. (If there are 4 stairs, one is a mimic).

If you denounce a religion, will the god try to find you and kill you later or something like that, or have you lost very little as long as you don't return to that religion that run?

Yes, they will take vengeance if you leave them (exception is leaving a good god for another good god (Zin, Evylion, Shining One)).

[Grujah]

Apparently Terence was wearing a cursed scale male when we fought.  No wonder he lost >_<

Terence is like.. the easiest unique (except maybe Iyib).

Sigmund, on the other hand.. if you see him, run. If you really have to kill him, do it like.. after D:9 or so.

Also Grinder. Grinder is a huge bitch, exp if he paralyses you.

[popsofctown]

So, is the best strategy in this game to be monotheistic?

[Grujah]

For the most time, yes.


Later on when you can take the punishment and you already made the best use of your current God and need some other benefits, you can switch (I never did this, but people say so).

[popsofctown]

Or you can be an atheist demigod!!

[Grujah]

I got killed by God punishment only once, I think. I was Demonspawn that had that trait to randomly spawn imps and things, and I have taken Okawaru. Unfortunately, I forgot that he doesn't take it lightly when your allies die.

[heron]

what does Zot: 3 mean?

Within the dungeon, there are other branches, like the Lair of the Beasts (the easiest one), the Orcish Mines, or the Vaults.
The Orb of Zot is on the Zot branch, which has at least three levels. To enter the Zot branch, you first have to acquire 3 runes of Zot. These are found in most of the more difficult branches, like the Shoals or the Snake Pit. Then you go down to the twenty-seventh dungeon floor, enter the Zot branch, head down a few more floors (hopefully not getting killed by the weird monsters there) and grab the orb. Then I guess you leave the dungeon. Probably something terrible happens when you grab the orb though.

There are 15 runes total though, so you can also play an extended game where you get all of the runes.

[popsofctown]

I haven't gotten past the area called "Dungeon" T_T

[heron]

OTOH, how do you skill spells on a Wizard? What do you skip/use, from starting book, at least?

I tend to learn everything from the starting book, and later ditch slow and summon imp.
I usually start out skilling spellcasting and conjuration.

The main tactic I like to use is hiding in a corridor and using conjure flame as a barrier. If there is no room for conjure flame, you can summon imp, back up twice, and then conjure.
Summon imp is a pretty good spell for a while actually.

Mephitic cloud is also very useful to deal with crowds, especially if your character doesn't breathe like my current grey draconian.

Blink is used to escape, magic missile for killing the basic enemies.

I base my later skills off what books I find/are given.

I haven't gotten past the area called "Dungeon" T_T

How far do you usually get to and what kills you? (Like, which level of the dungeon do you die on)
Have you reached the ecumenical temple?

You probably need to use the tactic called "Running for your life" a little more often.

[popsofctown]

I've reached the ecumenical temple several times.  I didn't know it had a fixed position, I thought it was a random place.

[popsofctown]

My highest floor was 9.  I usually die to a unique or one of my own ghosts

[popsofctown]

I found a dagger of speed.  It said attacks with it take half as long, but deal slightly less damage.  Does that mean if I max out my dagger skills I will attack four times as fast? Or do they not stack?

[popsofctown]

I found a sewer! this game is so fun

[popsofctown]

the sewer had an ice ring, which is great since i'm an ice elementalist ghoul

i'm gonna kick ass and take names and inscribe them onto the rotting corpses

[popsofctown]

This game is so damn dark.

"You die.  Fedhas appreciates your contribution to the ecosystem."

[popsofctown]

What's the clarity mutation do? And why can't I find mutations in the documentation (

[popsofctown]

Hm.. Should I buy:
The +7, +7 sword "Leuxithru"

or

3 large rocks


Tough call.  I mean I could throw one of those rocks, and then still have twice as many left in my pocket, that's value right there.

[Grujah]

I found a dagger of speed.  It said attacks with it take half as long, but deal slightly less damage.  Does that mean if I max out my dagger skills I will attack four times as fast? Or do they not stack?

Weapons of speed are generally very good.

What's the clarity mutation do? And why can't I find mutations in the documentation (

Makes your mind clear, thus protecting you from confusion and few other things, and making you unable to berserk.
(As for documentation, there is a quite a detailed Wiki, if you want spoilers).

Hm.. Should I buy:
The +7, +7 sword "Leuxithru"

or

3 large rocks


Tough call.  I mean I could throw one of those rocks, and then still have twice as many left in my pocket, that's value right there.

Large rocks can only be used be Ogres and Trolls, be aware of that. Also, they have very low chance of being destroyed when thrown. Sword is okish, I guess, if you get it branded later.

[popsofctown]

I'm in Lair!

[heron]

I'm in Lair!

Cool! Watch out for hydras and death yak packs. Be aware that the last floor (8) usually has a large pack of death yaks and an 'end vault.'
(Vaults are designed maps that are placed into the generated map)

[Grujah]

Also, if you are using a edged weapon (swords, axes) hydras are extra hard to kill, as they spawn more heads as you slash them. You can defeat it like in the myth, though.

I am currently forcing KoEn, they are quite strong/fun, but died second time in a row to a Orc Priest. UGH.

[heron]

My DrWz is still going strong; I am currently on D:21 and have cleared the Orcish Mines. Trying to decide whether to keeping pushing deeper or to go for a rune.
My Lair-branches are Shoals, Spider, and obviously Slime, but I have no rPoison, so Spider is probably a bad idea. Shoals is probably safe enough though.

Edit: Hey cool the shoals got an art upgrade.

[popsofctown]

Michel is a centaur bowman so hydras aren't hard.  I am running out of arrows though and starting to have to use maces.

[popsofctown]

I figured out I can play this game in the computer lab.  I just failed college

[Grujah]

CeHus are great. I have a great CeHu story, though. So, I am at D:8, and bow is my primary weapon, of course, and unarmed is my secondary. I got some wands, too. And I get into a fight with Maurice (a rogue that blinks, goes invis and steals stuff). And he steals my bow. I do ctrl + F and search the dungeon for other bows - NOT a single other bow spawned. It is quite hard to catch Maurice,  and when I do find him there is a castle structure thing in the middle of level surrounded by a moat with electric eels that just fry me and I he blinks in there when I get a couple of blows in and I lose him again.
I clear the level and use up all my wands in process (only have few shots left in my polymorf wands), try to clear others for bows but it just ain't doable barehanded. I scumm the level for hundreds of turns, staying away from the moat and praying for maurice to show up. Instead, cuz I scummed, game spawns a tengu reaver, which is like CR 20 or so. Yeeeah, now I also have to keep avoding that guy too. So I roam and roam, and finally manage to polymorf Maurice (ironically, in a centaur, that I was searching for to get a bow ) and I think he lost ability to invis (I might be wrong) so I finally kill him.
After wasting like 40 minutes there I go down and die like a level or two below.
RAGEQUIT.

[heron]

I just died too, in Vaults. Jory got me (I had never seen him before).
I thought I was invincible after I killed Mennas.

[Grujah]

Mennas is hard. I encountered him only a few times, won each time, but each time it was close. Jory was never a problem. My worst record is against Rupert, he killed me like 75% I've met him.

[Grujah]

YASD, and a fun one:
Killed by an exploding giant spore... set off by themself.

Thing is there was a ogre zombie just behind the corner, outside of LoS, and I wanted to stab the spore (instead of darting it, for some reason), so I come close, see ogre, panic, attack the spore and die from ogre + spore.

[popsofctown]

What is scumming? And how exactly does the high level spawn punishment deal work?  I read a mention of it in passing somewhere but don't understand it.  I don't think I've encountered any high level monsters on low level floors except for the occasional slightly higher ones that had a random chance to be there when the floor was virgin.

I have returned to lower level floors I thought were clear and found a low level monster or two there.  I am not sure if those are spawning periodically, or if they were wandering the floor in a pattern that made me miss out on seeing them on the first clear.  (You know, the whole, if two people are at a crowded park and are looking for eachother, the maximum amount of time it takes for them to find eachother is infinite, if one of them stays still, it's finite)

[Grujah]

They spawn periodically. When you roam a empty level to kill low level creatures that spawn and slowly grind experience, that is scumming. Game doesn't encourage that, so if you do it, after X turns it spawns super out-of-depth monster(s). Do not confuse with save scumming which is backuping your save and than restoring it if you die, that is cheating (so the game says).


BTW, few things that I've put in my init file that ease the gameplay:

 easy_eat_chunks        = true
 auto_eat_chunks        = true

First one makes it so that it when you press "e", it auto-eats the oldest chuck, without prompt. Makes it faster.
Second one makes it so that if you sleep or use auto-move (o or shift), and become hungry, it automatically eats (chunks only).


Also this, as I often forget to re-skill at start.
####Auto-open Skill Menu##############################################
# To automatically open the skill menu when starting a new game, add
# the following to your options file.

{
local need_skills_opened = true
function ready()
  if you.turns() == 0 and need_skills_opened then
   need_skills_opened = false
   crawl.sendkeys("m")
  end
end
}

######################################################################

[popsofctown]

If you go to a higher level floor, temporarily then return to scum more, will the game spawn out of depths anyway?

[popsofctown]

ok I looked that up myself, apparently it counts total time spent on the level.

The wiki said that scumming was "cheating" and "against the spirit of the game", but to me it seems like they should design the game to make it unrewarding, but if you can do it then it is worth it.  If every monster kill adds to your score, I bet the highest scorers are Mummies and Liches that scummed D2 and D3 etc until they were totally empty. Probably Lich, that thing doesn't have enough downside.

[Grujah]

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Cheating

It is not cheating, but "degenerative behavior" that they have a mechanism to stop.

[popsofctown]

Degenerate behavior is supposed to be a subheading of "not cheating", that's why I misread it before.  I wish I could fix that.

[popsofctown]

is the game always laggy when I play it online? I guess I should stick to offline for now since I'm bad anyway but I was wondering about whether playing online is worthwhile

[popsofctown]

thanks for the autoeat btw

[popsofctown]

ok guys i need some help/advice. Michel the Centaur hunter has been several floors into Lair, full cleared mine, and a couple floors into shoals.  In the main dungeon I've only been a little bit past Lair.  I'm not sure what to do next.  The only poison resist I've found so far is a Halberd with 1 level of poison resist on it, and I have no skill with axes, just with maces.  So Spiderland seems dangerous and going further into the shoals seems dangerous because this tanky merfolk guy started poisoning me and I had to blink out of that.  There's that slime related place the branches off Lair too I think, I don't know much about it.  Right now I'm leaning towards continuing through the dungeon because the last floor I delved into wasn't that hard, just annoying, had some ugly things.  The main reason I didn't keep going was because I was hungry and ugly things don't have nutrition.  I eat the ugly things meat since in the grand scheme of things I'm only 0/4 objects in so I figure random mutations are worthwhile.

[Grujah]

Yeah, only play offline cuz Webtiles is slow.

Do the Lair. Lair is generally easier than Orc Mines. Also enemy density is lower so less arrows needed Beware of Rupert, he sometimes spawns there.

Going down the dungeon is ok too. They do get quite hard fast so, take care with any new enemy that you encounter. Rock Trolls, Mountain Giants, Yakataurs - non are pleasant.

For slime you kneed some kind of corrosion and mutation protection.

Don't eat the ugly thing, not now. Not worth it now, imo. Esp as you can get some very nasty ones.

[popsofctown]

i will stop eating ugly thing then.

There was a unique in Lair I was avoiding, he might have been rupert.  I think i'll try more dungeon


12112

[heron]

After Lair and Orc, the game gets significantly easier.

How was your experience on Orc: 4?
Usually in my games I find massive hordes with at least 6 high priests, but in my last game there were none, so I am wonder whether I had exceptionally good luck or have been having exceptionally bad luck.

[popsofctown]

orc 4 was kinda faceroll

[Grujah]

My worse was when there was 6 small rooms, each with a shop and filled with knights, high priests and sorcs, with an occasional warrior. Some runs were easier, yeah. So you had luck

[popsofctown]

Yeah, I actually had a harder time on orc 3 than orc 4 because my orc 3 had stairs going straight into an orc mob.  My orc 4 was open with some corners for kiting so it wasn't that hard, stuff came one at a time.

[Grujah]

i will stop eating ugly thing then.

There was a unique in Lair I was avoiding, he might have been rupert.  I think i'll try more dungeon

Rupert's strat is to Paralyze you and than berserk and close in and bash you in melee. If he spawns with electrocution or draining, he is very hard to beat in melee. MR+ helps resist paralyze. You are fast so you might kite him, not sure how fast is he.

[Grujah]

Still forcing Enchanters. Switched to Spriggans, due to speed and superior spellcasting. Had limited success, last two promising guys got blasted by Psyche and Joseph cuz I was too stupid to fight. Played this one smarter (except that I branded my dagger of protection hoping for electrocution and got a mediocre brand), but still this one is the best so far, still going strong:

http://pastebin.com/E3VWq7Bi

Dispel Undead from Kiku's book came like a blessing, I cannot Hibernate the undead (which is a big problem) so this is my main way of fighting them (and it works so good). Edit: note D:2 Sigmund kill.


Edit: rebranded into venom, works good. Found Labyrinth. Gonna go in. Any tips, heron?

(no digging, unfortunately. Food shouldn't be an issue.).

[Grujah]

Ok, if somebody could in plain words explain me how glow (magic contamination) works and how to avoid negative effects. I just got -2 str from it, will have to quaff the potion to get rid of it, it hurts.

[popsofctown]

What class are you playing? The wiki says STR is the least important stat, so it shouldn't be too big of a deal.

You get a chance to mutate when your glow stacks up really high.  The color of the word "Contam" tells you how intense it is.  You're supposed to wait a while before getting more contaminated if it's too high.

[Grujah]

and.. YASD.

I thought it was such a good idea to carry abominations with me (so that enemies hit them instead of me). And than instead of just going invis stabbing the whole room of ogres and trolls that were sleeping, my abominations woke them all up.

Yeaaah. Not gonna learn that again. Still like Kiku for pain brand and some other goodies (Guaranteed Dispel Undead), but summons are definitely not that good. :/ I though they would be good in orc cause there are a lot of corpses. But also everybody is sleeping there and it's better to just go invis and stabity-stab.

I was SpEn, I had only 7 str and with 5 I risk sudden stat-death and also have very limited carry capacity.

[popsofctown]

yeah summons don't really go with a stealth strategy. 

[Grujah]

Yeah, learned that the hard way. Still gonna play SpEn for a while (Actually Vampire is kinda better for this build that I am going for (Necro/Ench) but vamp is so annoying and fiddley to play that I'll rather stay with Sp).

[popsofctown]

yeah, speaking of annoying and fiddly, only just now found a ring of sustenance for my Centaur.  Much more convenient

[heron]

I think glow is just lower stealth and at high levels a chance of mutation.

[popsofctown]

does ring of magic resistance block poison somewhat?

[Grujah]

I don't think so.
Ring of resist poison block poison, ring of MR makes you resist spells easier.

This run I've realised that Kiku isn't all that awesome, after all. Confuse seems to be working against undeads quite good as well so Dispel Undead is less cool, and there are other good brands as well. (Have distortion currently). Still, not a terrible choice. Probably going with Curse God (Azsh?) next time (or Oka/Makhleb). Though, still not dead, this one is.

[Grujah]

And YASD. I was going strong, I was able to cast Invis reliably and just slaughter sleeping rooms, than for no reason whatsoever attacked a non-sleeping (and I can make them asleep) a simaclura that nearly one-shot killed me, managed to run away / heal, and than got shot by centaur archer. It could have been avoided sooo easily. I could have swept Orc Mines without even taking a hit. Sigh.

[qmech]

I've had a look at DCSS.  It's the first roguelike I've been able to get on with at all (Tiles helps a lot).  I've run through the tutorials and tried the three different hints modes.  What should I look at next?

[popsofctown]

Just start playing, start dying, start playing again.  Minotaur Beserker of Trog is definitely the simplest class to play, Centaur Hunter is also easy and I think stealth-dagger-backstabby things are pretty straightforward too.  When you don't understand something hit the wiki and figure out what it is. 

Make sure to press m at the start of the game, then hit / to modify your skill distributions.  Many characters should abandon Stealth entirely, for instance

[Grujah]

1. Dunno if it is covered in tut, but learn stair dancing, it's very important skill.
Basically, when if you take the stairs up/down, all monsters will get to attempt a hit on you, but only those right next to you will follow you.
Use this to break big group of enemies into smaller group, than heal, than go back, repeat.

Biggest killers early game to watch out for:
Sigmund (plain nasty), Orc Priests (can attack anything in LoS, they are in green, not purple),  Gnolls (strong attack + swarm + often have polearms), Ogres (can 1hitKO characters), Centaurs (ranged,often good damage), bees (swarm + evasion + poison).

[popsofctown]

Trying to get a Felid Monk far enough to see Jivya.  As a monk you can go get the ability to summon slimes right away, which lets you use the religion long before the slime pits.

Mutations that prohibit equipment as a drawback seem good for a Felid. 

[popsofctown]

Hm, actually Octopode is probably better for this.  Just because, I think Octopode is a stronger class overall.  Revive is not nearly as useful as ring stacking.

[popsofctown]

Oh, Octopodes don't like to be monks, nevermind.

[popsofctown]

I like the idea of Monking into Jivya though, is anyone better than Felid for that?

[Grujah]

I was trying that with Troll for some time, never made it to Slime Pits. Troll needs no equipment (other than your choice of ranged, wands or large rocks) and has claws which are so awesome.

Never really played Felids or Octopedes, so no idea about them.

[popsofctown]

Actually I think Draconians might be best.

[popsofctown]

how do I mark everything in the game for autopickup? I plan on feeding oozes after all.  Do they eat skeletons?

[Grujah]

You will get burdned fast, but iwth one of these ;'\, not sure.

[Grujah]

BTW Just died to Nergille on XL13 cuz she sees invis and I didnt' know that spectral orcs can shoot bolts, would have blinked with a scroll otherwise. Char was so awesome, I almost clear Orc with Invis alone, had Darkness, Blink spell, all other kind of awesome spells, artefact buckler, good dagger..  sigh.

[popsofctown]

My strategy is to dump all of every floors contents next to the stairs so they can be easily accessed later once me and Jivya are on a first name basis with eachother.  So I can handle the burden. 

Skeletons eventually rot completely like chunks, it turns out, so it doesn't matter much whether oozes eat them for my hoarding tactics.

[heron]

My strategy is to dump all of every floors contents next to the stairs so they can be easily accessed later once me and Jivya are on a first name basis with eachother.  So I can handle the burden. 

Skeletons eventually rot completely like chunks, it turns out, so it doesn't matter much whether oozes eat them for my hoarding tactics.

This sounds like an extremely tedious strategy. The game is generally designed to discourage picking up every item on the floor.

[Grujah]

Actually, compared to some stashing strategies, it's quite lite.

I only stash food/scrolls/pots/situational jewelry/situational backup weapons/sometimes wands.

Like, I don't like to carry all my blink scrolls/speed potions with me, in case I catch fire or something. Other things mostly as they take too much weight/space to carry.

[popsofctown]

I have the summon fire and fire elementals lantern, and the wind version, and two copies of the water version.  When I unleash them they kick some ass, and they recharge fairly quickly as I gain experience.  Am I just lucky to get so many of these things? Are they so effective because I've been using evocations? (I level it, for wands).

Do they become less useful late game?

[popsofctown]

i wiped everything on shoals 5 but can't find the rune

[popsofctown]

It was on an island i had to teleport onto.  I almost died because I pissed off my god when my fire elementals damage my water elementals.  Either that or one of my wands shot through steam and hit an ally i couldn't see.

[popsofctown]

I died.  I was playing a little too loose.  Might have been because i wanted to get to playing draconian

[Grujah]

Ok. These Orc Priests. They are just NOT FAIR.

[popsofctown]

I have a level 7 fire yoshi!

I actually really like that orc priests are in the game.  They balance things out by guaranteeing that maximum health matters, and by making sure damage output matters. 

[popsofctown]

wish this game had sound sometimes

[pingpongsam]

There are no games that I ever play with sound on. In fact, I rarely ever have sound on period (only for videos and even then sometimes I watch them in silence).

[heron]

Just died to a room with 4 orc priests on D:4...should have IDed my tele scrolls.

[popsofctown]

Seems hard to get stuck in a situation like that with unIDed scrolls as the only mistake.


Right now I'm playing a High Orc Beserker.  But I accidentally got in a bad situation where i had 5 health against an orc priest and an orc warrior.  I was forced to bow to Beogh to turn them neutral.  Now Trog wants to kill me, I successfully barely Teleported out of brute summoning but he's not mollified yet.

I had a lot of Trog piety, it's a shame.

[popsofctown]

I'm playing on webtiles now, so I think it's possible for you to look at my game.  I dunno how tho

[Grujah]

Started again after some time of notplaying, with a great run of SpEn (Best so far, lol), and fucked up cuz I just had to see "how does the Slime Pit looks like" after clearing Orc and Lair. Not even mad, though, as killing a heard of death yaks without taking a scratch and one-stab killing all the nasty uniques is so satisfying. Also realized that Snake is going to be a bitch as Nagas see invis.

[popsofctown]

If you have rpois you can probably just kite the nagas.

[Grujah]

Kiting is not a problem, I can kite mostly anything in game (except like.. wolves). But I cannot really kill anything that doesn't sleep or is confused or cannot see me. So once one guy wakes and alarms the others, I have to put em all to sleep/confuse them, which is much harder to do visible. I am much faster, though, that might help.

[popsofctown]

Try to see if maybe you can find Nagas near stairs and bring them up one floor with you.  If you can survive doing that, you can kite them all you want on the cleared floor and repeat that until all or almost all the Nagas are gone.  Then you can kill the other stuff with invis

[popsofctown]

Just a possible idea

[popsofctown]

rpois is huge though.  You only need one rank of it (one rank is the max rank) and it blocks 90% of all poisoning occurences.

[heron]

Before you decide to stairdance, you should remember that whenever you enter a previously unseen floor, you get the first move. So the second time you go down and up the stairs you will receive twice as much damage as the first time, plus additional damage because more enemies have moved over to the stairs. This is why I prefer to use tele over stairdancing. (for large crowds)

[Grujah]

Try to see if maybe you can find Nagas near stairs and bring them up one floor with you.  If you can survive doing that, you can kite them all you want on the cleared floor and repeat that until all or almost all the Nagas are gone.  Then you can kill the other stuff with invis

I know how to stair dance, but thanks 

[Grujah]

Also what heron said, esp as I have miniscule amount of health. But you can always use different stair for going down.


(Also, do note that I died in that Slime Pit and have do to it all over again ).

[popsofctown]

Teleporting is a valuable resource though.  Are you saying you usually play translocation mage heron?

[heron]

I usually either have blink, a ring of tele, or a wand of tele, so generally I am pretty tele'd up. I am pretty reluctant to use an actual scroll for teleporting.

[popsofctown]

oh, ok, you usually train evocations.  I don't always train evocations so the tele-rings aren't always reliable for me, that's the main difference. 

[popsofctown]

I rolled a kobold that was not a beserker of trog, right next to starting point there was an amulet of rage just sitting there

[Grujah]

note to self: DO NOT wield identify magic staves. Esp not if you got no remove curse scrolls.

[Grujah]

OK, cleared Orc and Lair again, and doing GREAT. Had some luck with equipment.

http://pastebin.com/nzDzuHFe

Now, the question is, which armor to go with?
I got +2 robe of Magic Resistance, +2 robe of Resistances and Mottled Dragon Armor (well, hide, but I also got spare Ench Armour).

[mcmcsalot]

Risk of rain is fun

[popsofctown]

If you're anywhere with a normal balance of casters and other mobs, I think the mottled dragon armor is going to win.  It will almost double your AC without adding much encumbrance

[Grujah]

I was leaning towards Resistances. AC difference of +2 robe and mottled is only 2 points, not that much. On mottled GDR 28% is very nice, though. Also, if I enchant it enough I can get it to additional +6 AC, and that is A LOT. But I don't have that much ench scrolls ATM.

Also, I barely take any melee damage. my AC is high, and buckler helps. A huge ranged burst of fire damage concerns me much more, as it can halve my hp, at least. OTOH, reflection does take care of many projectiles.. dunno.

I mean, mottled is better in the long run, but not sure about "right now".
(Got Shoals and Spider, if it makes a difference. Going shoals first, I think).


Edit: O yeah, also, those 12 honey combs are the life saver. I actually ate my last bread ration just before finding them and was pretty much convinced I was going to starve soon (I can't eat chunks). These babies are gonna last a while, though!

[popsofctown]

Ok, yeah, the enchant level makes a difference.  But i mean if you start commiting enchant scrolls towards something it should be the mottled. 

[Grujah]

Note to self: Never play drunk.

[popsofctown]

I got the launching damage formula from learndb.  It's interesting.  There's a min() function that looks at your Strength and the enchantment level of your bow, so it would seem you are incentivized to just leave your Strenght at 0 if you find a +12,+12 bow or somesuch, and discouraged from bothering with enchanting your weapon if you max out strength.  (crossbows still get an enchantment/2 damage bonus, but all other launchers get no enchantment benefit if your strength is arbitrarily large.)

Oh, wait, there is an L/8 term at the beginning, but that's a lot more negligible.

The number of opening and closing parentheses isn't equal so I guess I shouldn't trust it.

[popsofctown]

Don't read this, I'm leaving it here for later.

I have an epic story to tell, and the log is better with explanation since I can explain positionings.

_This raw flesh tastes terrible.
_You continue eating. x2
_You start resting.
_Your crimson imp disappears in a puff of smoke!
 "Let's go for a ride!"
 Your surroundings suddenly seem different.
_Your surroundings suddenly seem different.
 Found a ring mail and 19 gold pieces.
 A necromancer and 2 simulacra come into view.
_The sheep simulacrum moves out of view.
_You now have 992 gold pieces (gained 19).
 You see here a ring mail.
 You start memorising the spell. You continue memorising.
 The sheep simulacrum bites you. Your memorisation is interrupted.
_The sheep simulacrum freezes you.
 You hit the sheep simulacrum.
 Your headbutt misses the sheep simulacrum.
 The sheep simulacrum barely misses you. You furiously retaliate!
_You headbutt the sheep simulacrum, but do no damage.
 You hit the sheep simulacrum. You kick the sheep simulacrum!
_The sheep simulacrum vapourises!
 You start removing your armour.
_You continue taking off your +0 orcish cloak.
 You finish taking off your +0 orcish cloak.
 You start removing your armour.
_You continue taking off your +1 ring mail. x5
 You finish taking off your +1 ring mail.
 You start putting on your armour.
_You continue putting on your +2 orcish robe of resistance. x2
 You finish putting on your +2 orcish robe of resistance.
 You feel resistant to extremes of temperature.
 You start putting on your armour.
_You continue putting on your +0 orcish cloak.
 You finish putting on your +0 orcish cloak.
_You start memorising the spell. You continue memorising.
_You finish memorising.
_A yell rips itself from your throat!
_You hear a shout!
 You miscast Summon Butterflies.
 You are very lightly contaminated with residual magic.
_Shadowy shapes form in the air around you, then vanish.
 Something misses your butterfly.
 Something completely misses your butterfly.
_Something barely misses your butterfly.
_You miscast Summon Butterflies. Nothing appears to happen.
 You don't have enough magic to cast that spell.
 It begins to drip with poison!
_B - an uncursed trident of venom (weapon)
 You reach to attack! You hit the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum misses your butterfly.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum completely misses your butterfly.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum claws your butterfly.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum freezes your butterfly!
_Your butterfly dies!
_You reach to attack! You hit the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 Your uncursed trident of venom stops dripping with poison.
 m - a +4,+1 orcish hand axe (weapon)
 The grizzly bear simulacrum barely misses you.
 You furiously retaliate!
 You headbutt the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum claws you but does no damage.
_The grizzly bear simulacrum closely misses you.
_You hit the grizzly bear simulacrum. You kick the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 You hit the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum barely misses you.
 You furiously retaliate!
 You headbutt the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum closely misses you.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum claws you.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum freezes you.
_You resist.
 You slash the grizzly bear simulacrum!
_The grizzly bear simulacrum vapourises!
_You feel clever all of a sudden.
 The necromancer hits your butterfly with a runed dagger.
 Your butterfly writhes in agony.
_Your butterfly dies!
 The necromancer casts a spell at you.
_You resist.
_The necromancer hits you with a dagger of pain.
 You open the door.
 9 simulacra come into view.
_The necromancer hits you but does no damage.
_As you read the scroll of blinking, it crumbles to dust.
 You open the door.
 Psyche comes into view. She is wielding a runed dagger.
_Psyche shouts!
 Found a dagger.
 Psyche barely misses your butterfly.
 The necromancer casts a spell at you.
 The bolt of cold hits you! You resist.
 The sheep simulacrum bites your butterfly.
_Your butterfly dies!
 You don't have enough magic to cast that spell.
 You hit the necromancer but do no damage.
 Your kick misses the necromancer. You headbutt the necromancer.
 The necromancer is lightly wounded.
 Psyche's eyes start to glow.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum barely misses your butterfly.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum claws your butterfly.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum freezes your butterfly!
_Your butterfly dies!
 You closely miss the necromancer.
 The necromancer is lightly wounded.
 Psyche looks braver.
_The necromancer hits you with a dagger of pain.
 You slash the necromancer! Your kick misses the necromancer.
 The necromancer is moderately wounded.
 Psyche gestures at you while chanting.
 The puff of flame hits your butterfly.
 Your butterfly dies!
_You smell something rotten. (slot a)
_Psyche hits you with a runed dagger.
 There is an open door, spattered with blood here.
 The necromancer gestures at you while chanting.
 You resist.
 Psyche points at you and mumbles some strange words.
_The puff of frost hits you! You resist.
 Psyche casts a spell at you.
 The magic dart hits you!
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 Psyche laughs secretively.
 Psyche gestures wildly while chanting.
_Psyche seems to speed up.
 You hit Psyche. Your kick misses Psyche.
 Psyche is lightly wounded.
_Psyche hits you but does no damage.
 You hit Psyche. Your kick misses Psyche.
 Psyche is lightly wounded.
 Psyche hits you with a runed dagger.
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 Psyche cries, "You've killed my pet!"
 Psyche points at you and mumbles some strange words.
_The puff of flame misses you.
 Psyche casts a spell at you.
 The puff of flame hits you! You resist.
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
_Psyche barely misses you. You furiously retaliate! You headbutt Psyche!
 Psyche hits you with a runed dagger.
 * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
_You partially resist. You feel drained.
 Psyche hits you with a dagger of chaos!
 * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 You partially resist. You feel drained.
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 You hit Psyche. Your kick misses Psyche. Your headbutt misses Psyche.
 Psyche is heavily wounded.
_Psyche hits you but does no damage.
 You hit Psyche. You kick Psyche.
 Psyche is severely wounded.
_Psyche drinks a potion. Psyche is healed!
 Quivering D - a throwing net [frayed] for throwing.
 You hit Psyche. You kick Psyche.
 Psyche is severely wounded.
 Psyche barely misses you. You furiously retaliate! You headbutt Psyche.
 Psyche laughs secretively.
 Psyche casts a spell at you.
 The puff of flame hits you! You resist.
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 You closely miss Psyche. Your kick misses Psyche. Your headbutt misses Psyche.
 Psyche is severely wounded.
 "Let's see if it's strong enough to survive yet."
 Psyche's dagger of chaos dances into the air!
 It bites your dagger of chaos but does no damage.
 Something completely misses your dagger of chaos.
 It claws your dagger of chaos but does no damage.
 The necromancer closely misses your dagger of chaos.
 Psyche hits you.
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 You hit Psyche.
 Psyche is almost dead.
_Psyche closely misses you.
 You hit Psyche.
 You kill Psyche!
 Your life force feels restored.
 Your dagger of chaos hits the hound simulacrum.
 The necromancer closely misses your dagger of chaos.
 The hound simulacrum barely misses your dagger of chaos.
 Something bites your dagger of chaos. Something freezes your dagger of chaos.
 Your dagger of chaos resists.
 Something closely misses your dagger of chaos.
_It claws your dagger of chaos but does no damage.
 Your dagger of chaos hits the hound simulacrum!
 The hound simulacrum vapourises!
 Something hits your dagger of chaos.
_Your dagger of chaos closely misses something.
 Your dagger of chaos closely misses something.
_Something misses your dagger of chaos. Your dagger of chaos misses something.
 Your Axes skill increases to level 16!
_You feel a bit more experienced.
_You feel a bit more experienced.
_You feel a bit more experienced.
 A kobold and a centaur come into view.
_The kobold shouts!
_The centaur wields a bow. The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow misses you.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow hits your butterfly.
 Your butterfly dies!
_Your dagger of chaos barely misses the sheep simulacrum.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow misses your butterfly.
 The arrow hits you!
 * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 Your dagger of chaos hits the sheep simulacrum!
 The sheep simulacrum misses your butterfly.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow hits your butterfly.
 Your butterfly dies!
 Your dagger of chaos hits the sheep simulacrum!
_The sheep simulacrum vapourises!
 The kobold misses your butterfly. The centaur shoots an arrow.
_The arrow misses your butterfly. The arrow misses you.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow misses your butterfly.
 The arrow misses your butterfly. The arrow misses you.
 The kobold barely misses your butterfly.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow hits your butterfly.
_Your butterfly dies!
 The kobold completely misses your butterfly.
_The hound simulacrum barely misses your butterfly.
 Quivering t - 2 darts of flame for throwing.
 You throw a dart of flame.
 The dart of flame misses the hound simulacrum.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow hits your butterfly.
 The hound simulacrum misses your butterfly.
 The kobold barely misses your dagger of chaos.
_The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow misses you.
 You swap places.
 Your butterfly disappears in a puff of smoke! x2
_The hound simulacrum barely misses your butterfly.
 Quivering D - a throwing net [frayed] for throwing.
 You throw a throwing net [frayed].
 The throwing net [frayed] hits the kobold.
 The kobold is caught in the net!
 Your butterfly disappears in a puff of smoke!
 The kobold struggles to escape the net. Your dagger of chaos hits the centaur!
_Your dagger of chaos freezes the centaur.
 You swap places. The kobold struggles to escape the net.
_The hound simulacrum misses your butterfly.
 You swap places. The kobold struggles to escape the net.
 The centaur unwields an uncursed bow. The centaur completely misses you.
 Your dagger of chaos hits the centaur. The centaur is healed somewhat.
 The centaur closely misses you. You furiously retaliate!
 You headbutt the centaur!
_You kill the centaur!
 The kobold struggles against the net.
_The rat simulacrum completely misses your butterfly.
 The kobold struggles against the net. Your dagger of chaos hits the kobold!
_The kobold dies!
_You feel a little less clever now.
 You swap places.
 Your dagger of chaos hits the hound simulacrum!
 The hound simulacrum bites your butterfly.
 The hound simulacrum freezes your butterfly.
 Your dagger of chaos hits the hound simulacrum!
_The hound simulacrum vapourises!
 Your dagger of chaos hits the rat simulacrum!
_The rat simulacrum vapourises!
_You start resting.
_Your dagger of chaos falls from the air.
 You see here a dagger of chaos.
_v - a dagger of chaos
_You start resting.
_Your butterfly disappears in a puff of smoke!
_Your magical contamination has completely faded away.
_Your butterfly disappears in a puff of smoke! x2
_Your butterfly disappears in a puff of smoke!
_Your butterfly disappears in a puff of smoke! x2
_A hobgoblin comes into view. It is wielding an orcish club.
_Your butterfly disappears in a puff of smoke! x2
_You remove your ring of poison resistance.
 You hit the hobgoblin.
_You kill the hobgoblin!

[popsofctown]

Ok.  Big story time.  This is without a doubt my most epic crawl experience thus far.  I badly want to share it.


I was playing a Minotaur Gladiator of Xom, with a large amount of skill invested in Axes.  I had a book of random basic spells Xom gifted me, and shouting, hooves, and cold resist mutations.  I also had an amulet that blocks some deflects some attacks from summoned monsters.

_This raw flesh tastes terrible.
_You continue eating. x2
_You start resting.

So, I'm chilling out, eating meat and healing up from 60% with the imp xom summoned for me.  Mostly new floor

_Your crimson imp disappears in a puff of smoke!
 "Let's go for a ride!"
 Your surroundings suddenly seem different.
_Your surroundings suddenly seem different.
 Found a ring mail and 19 gold pieces.
 A necromancer and 2 simulacra come into view.

When Xom decides to make my life exciting and teleport me into a room with an extremely dangerous necromancer and some simulacra.  It's a roughly square room with a lower left door, lower right door, necromancer in the upper left, and a vertical dead end in the upper right hidden from the necro's line of sight.

_The sheep simulacrum moves out of view.
_You now have 992 gold pieces (gained 19).
 You see here a ring mail.

Since the necro hasn't seen me yet I bolt for the dead end, hoping to regen that 40% before escaping or fighting. The sheep saw me, I hope it will forget about me.

You start memorising the spell. You continue memorising.

I decide to try to memorize summon butterfly from the low level book even though my character is nonmagical up to this point.  Almost no other tricks are up my sleeve

The sheep simulacrum bites you. Your memorisation is interrupted.
_The sheep simulacrum freezes you.
 You hit the sheep simulacrum.
 Your headbutt misses the sheep simulacrum.
 The sheep simulacrum barely misses you. You furiously retaliate!
_You headbutt the sheep simulacrum, but do no damage.
 You hit the sheep simulacrum. You kick the sheep simulacrum!
_The sheep simulacrum vapourises!

Woops, now I'm at 50%.  At least I am pretty sure now that only the sheep saw me.  I definitely have time to do a switch that leaves my AC temporarily low.

You start removing your armour.
_You continue taking off your +0 orcish cloak.
 You finish taking off your +0 orcish cloak.
 You start removing your armour.
_You continue taking off your +1 ring mail. x5
 You finish taking off your +1 ring mail.
 You start putting on your armour.
_You continue putting on your +2 orcish robe of resistance. x2
 You finish putting on your +2 orcish robe of resistance.
 You feel resistant to extremes of temperature.
 You start putting on your armour.
_You continue putting on your +0 orcish cloak.
 You finish putting on your +0 orcish cloak.

That's better.

_You start memorising the spell. You continue memorising.
_You finish memorising.

ok, cool.  Now I'll just hit 5 until I'm at full health, then summon 8 butterflies and make a break for it.

_A yell rips itself from your throat!
_You hear a shout!

shiiiiiiiit

You miscast Summon Butterflies.
 You are very lightly contaminated with residual magic.
[successful butterfly cast]
 Something misses your butterfly.
 Something completely misses your butterfly.
_Something barely misses your butterfly.
_You miscast Summon Butterflies. Nothing appears to happen.
 You don't have enough magic to cast that spell.
 It begins to drip with poison!
_B - an uncursed trident of venom (weapon)
 You reach to attack! You hit the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum misses your butterfly.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum completely misses your butterfly.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum claws your butterfly.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum freezes your butterfly!
_Your butterfly dies!
_You reach to attack! You hit the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 Your uncursed trident of venom stops dripping with poison.
 m - a +4,+1 orcish hand axe (weapon)
 The grizzly bear simulacrum barely misses you.
 You furiously retaliate!
 You headbutt the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum claws you but does no damage.
_The grizzly bear simulacrum closely misses you.
_You hit the grizzly bear simulacrum. You kick the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 You hit the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum barely misses you.
 You furiously retaliate!
 You headbutt the grizzly bear simulacrum.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum closely misses you.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum claws you.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum freezes you.
_You resist.
 You slash the grizzly bear simulacrum!
_The grizzly bear simulacrum vapourises!
_You feel clever all of a sudden.

Generic fighting against the frosties while my butterflies flutter.

The necromancer hits your butterfly with a runed dagger.
 Your butterfly writhes in agony.
_Your butterfly dies!
 The necromancer casts a spell at you.
_You resist.
_The necromancer hits you with a dagger of pain.

Oh god, a dagger of pain.  I'm bolting past him to the lower right door.

You open the door.
 9 simulacra come into view.

You gotta be kidding me.  A dead end with nothing but 9 simulacra I just released.

_The necromancer hits you but does no damage.
_As you read the scroll of blinking, it crumbles to dust.
 You open the door.

I blink to the other door.  Please have up-stairs and a bat.

Psyche comes into view. She is wielding a runed dagger.
_Psyche shouts!

Seriously? Definitely close enough to get some hits on me when I run past her to flee down the only hall this room has.  At least it is a 1 tile thick hall if I get there alive.  I don't expect to at this point.  I have no potions, no cards, no wild card scrolls, nothing but EV and cold resist rolls, butterflies, and Xom's funny ideas about honor at this point.

Found a dagger.
 Psyche barely misses your butterfly.

Psyche you are usually unintimidating compared to other uniques but that's kind of a new low for you hun.

The necromancer casts a spell at you.
 The bolt of cold hits you! You resist.
 The sheep simulacrum bites your butterfly.
_Your butterfly dies!
 You don't have enough magic to cast that spell.
 You hit the necromancer but do no damage.
 Your kick misses the necromancer. You headbutt the necromancer.
 The necromancer is lightly wounded.
 Psyche's eyes start to glow.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum barely misses your butterfly.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum claws your butterfly.
 The grizzly bear simulacrum freezes your butterfly!
_Your butterfly dies!
 You closely miss the necromancer.
 The necromancer is lightly wounded.
 Psyche looks braver.
_The necromancer hits you with a dagger of pain.
 You slash the necromancer! Your kick misses the necromancer.
 The necromancer is moderately wounded.
 Psyche gestures at you while chanting.
 The puff of flame hits your butterfly.
 Your butterfly dies!

The butterflies block Psyche's LoS for a moment so I try to see if the necro is surprisingly squishy for an "extremely dangerous".  He's not, so once Psyche destroys my butterfly cover I head back to the hall

_Psyche hits you with a runed dagger.
 There is an open door, spattered with blood here.
 The necromancer gestures at you while chanting.
 You resist.
 Psyche points at you and mumbles some strange words.
_The puff of frost hits you! You resist.
 Psyche casts a spell at you.
 The magic dart hits you!
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 Psyche laughs secretively.
 Psyche gestures wildly while chanting.
_Psyche seems to speed up.

Psyche is faster than me and demonstrating that she has the INT to kill me using spell that doesn't miss.  I don't have a choice besides fighting back now, and it looks really bleak.

You hit Psyche. Your kick misses Psyche.
 Psyche is lightly wounded.
_Psyche hits you but does no damage.
 You hit Psyche. Your kick misses Psyche.
 Psyche is lightly wounded.
 Psyche hits you with a runed dagger.
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 Psyche cries, "You've killed my pet!"
 Psyche points at you and mumbles some strange words.
_The puff of flame misses you.
 Psyche casts a spell at you.
 The puff of flame hits you! You resist.
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
_Psyche barely misses you. You furiously retaliate! You headbutt Psyche!
 Psyche hits you with a runed dagger.
 * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
_You partially resist. You feel drained.
 Psyche hits you with a dagger of chaos!
 * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 You partially resist. You feel drained.
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *

I am literally at 1/86 HP at this point guys.  1/86 HP.  There's still a blob of simulacrams in the hall waiting for their turn, and the necro.  But at least Psyche is wounded right?

You hit Psyche. Your kick misses Psyche. Your headbutt misses Psyche.
 Psyche is heavily wounded.
_Psyche hits you but does no damage.
 You hit Psyche. You kick Psyche.
 Psyche is severely wounded.
_Psyche drinks a potion. Psyche is healed!

Not even..

You hit Psyche. You kick Psyche.
 Psyche is severely wounded.
 Psyche barely misses you. You furiously retaliate! You headbutt Psyche.
 Psyche laughs secretively.
 Psyche casts a spell at you.
 The puff of flame hits you! You resist.
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 You closely miss Psyche. Your kick misses Psyche. Your headbutt misses Psyche.
 Psyche is severely wounded.

I'm literally overdue for death at this point, not even gambler's fallacy, the chick is gonna get down to 1MP and cast magic dart because it's cheapest.

"Let's see if it's strong enough to survive yet."
 Psyche's dagger of chaos dances into the air!
 It bites your dagger of chaos but does no damage.
 Something completely misses your dagger of chaos.
 It claws your dagger of chaos but does no damage.
 The necromancer closely misses your dagger of chaos.

0.0 I didn't even know Xom could do that!! Now Psyche is unarmed and my AC makes it very likely she does 0 damage.  She actually does just enough damage to counteract my regen and put me back to 1, of course.

Psyche hits you.
_* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 You hit Psyche.
 Psyche is almost dead.
_Psyche closely misses you.
 You hit Psyche.
 You kill Psyche!
 Your life force feels restored.
 Your dagger of chaos hits the hound simulacrum.
 The necromancer closely misses your dagger of chaos.
 The hound simulacrum barely misses your dagger of chaos.
 Something bites your dagger of chaos. Something freezes your dagger of chaos.
 Your dagger of chaos resists.
 Something closely misses your dagger of chaos.
_It claws your dagger of chaos but does no damage.
 Your dagger of chaos hits the hound simulacrum!
 The hound simulacrum vapourises!
 Something hits your dagger of chaos.
_Your dagger of chaos closely misses something.
 Your dagger of chaos closely misses something.
_Something misses your dagger of chaos. Your dagger of chaos misses something.
 Your Axes skill increases to level 16!
_You feel a bit more experienced.
_You feel a bit more experienced.
_You feel a bit more experienced.

I run away while the dagger distracts them.  It quickly falls to 1 HP as an act of loyalty and unity and then it starts owning stuff.

A kobold and a centaur come into view.
_The kobold shouts!
_The centaur wields a bow. The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow misses you.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow hits your butterfly.

It never ends.  I'm at 2-3 HP, and the hall lets out into an open area with these two ranged enemies with good accuracy.  I spam the hell out of butterflies and constantly try to juke and hide in the butterflies, hoping my dagger will finish all the dudes, then come over here and kill or distract the centaur.

Your butterfly dies!
_Your dagger of chaos barely misses the sheep simulacrum.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow misses your butterfly.
 The arrow hits you!
 * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
 Your dagger of chaos hits the sheep simulacrum!
 The sheep simulacrum misses your butterfly.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow hits your butterfly.
 Your butterfly dies!
 Your dagger of chaos hits the sheep simulacrum!
_The sheep simulacrum vapourises!
 The kobold misses your butterfly. The centaur shoots an arrow.
_The arrow misses your butterfly. The arrow misses you.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow misses your butterfly.
 The arrow misses your butterfly. The arrow misses you.
 The kobold barely misses your butterfly.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow hits your butterfly.
_Your butterfly dies!
 The kobold completely misses your butterfly.
_The hound simulacrum barely misses your butterfly.
 Quivering t - 2 darts of flame for throwing.
 You throw a dart of flame.
 The dart of flame misses the hound simulacrum.
 The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow hits your butterfly.
 The hound simulacrum misses your butterfly.
 The kobold barely misses your dagger of chaos.
_The centaur shoots an arrow. The arrow misses you.
 You swap places.
 Your butterfly disappears in a puff of smoke! x2
_The hound simulacrum barely misses your butterfly.
 Quivering D - a throwing net [frayed] for throwing.
 You throw a throwing net [frayed].
 The throwing net [frayed] hits the kobold.
 The kobold is caught in the net!
 Your butterfly disappears in a puff of smoke!
 The kobold struggles to escape the net. Your dagger of chaos hits the centaur!
_Your dagger of chaos freezes the centaur.
 You swap places. The kobold struggles to escape the net.
_The hound simulacrum misses your butterfly.
 You swap places. The kobold struggles to escape the net.
 The centaur unwields an uncursed bow. The centaur completely misses you.
 Your dagger of chaos hits the centaur. The centaur is healed somewhat.
 The centaur closely misses you. You furiously retaliate!
 You headbutt the centaur!
_You kill the centaur!
 The kobold struggles against the net.
_The rat simulacrum completely misses your butterfly.
 The kobold struggles against the net. Your dagger of chaos hits the kobold!
_The kobold dies!
_You feel a little less clever now.
 You swap places.
 Your dagger of chaos hits the hound simulacrum!
 The hound simulacrum bites your butterfly.
 The hound simulacrum freezes your butterfly.
 Your dagger of chaos hits the hound simulacrum!
_The hound simulacrum vapourises!
 Your dagger of chaos hits the rat simulacrum!
_The rat simulacrum vapourises!
_You start resting.

I finally five, the dagger kills everything.  Then it falls to the ground for me to keep.  I thank the Xoms, a lot.  Nothing wanders by before I 5 up to full HP, the end.

[Grujah]

That was awesome.

I just died cuz of starvation. And I had randomly found dagger of pain on D6 which was so awesome as I switched to kiku.

[popsofctown]

That was awesome.

I just died cuz of starvation. And I had randomly found dagger of pain on D6 which was so awesome as I switched to kiku.

Wow.  Outside a labyrinth, without hungry ghost impact? I've always had a big enough permafood cushion to not starve.

[popsofctown]

So tell me what kikku is all about, because I notice when I read the bio from the god I often don't get the same "feel" the god will actually have when I worship it.  Like when I read about TSO I thought I was going to mainly have no benefit except some holy blasts of bonus damage to undead, but then when I actually played it, it has this very significant rent-a-shield mechanic going on and the anti-undead stuff turned out to be more Samson style clear or panic button uses.

For this reason I have yet to give some of them a shot yet.

[Grujah]

That was awesome.

I just died cuz of starvation. And I had randomly found dagger of pain on D6 which was so awesome as I switched to kiku.

Wow.  Outside a labyrinth, without hungry ghost impact? I've always had a big enough permafood cushion to not starve.

Yeah, in Lair. Well, I live only on permafood, did cast a lot of Invisibility and didn't find much food, so .. yeah.

-------------------------------------------


I get what you mean about Gods. While benefits of some are very clear (Oka), some are not.

So, Kiku. First, it is easy to please him. No condemned actions (other than renouncing him), and he is easy to please (just kill stuff).

Main benefits, I would say, are gifts. Particularly the second Necrobook and the final gift. But, lets go over him (I went Kiku with Necros and Enchants, so speaking from there).

* - you get the ability so summon corpses at will for small piety/good cost and the first necrobook.
Now, I didn't find summon corpses THAT useful. Mainly because, maybe as I didn't have Necromancy high enough, it was not consistent in what it gives. Sometimes I get like awesome troll corpses sometimes jackals. For that reason it worked somewhat better with Twisted Resurrection than Animate Dead and the like. It can also serve as quick food grab, esp if you are a Vampire. As I said, I don't think this is all that useful, but is ok.
The value of first Necrobook really depends on whether you started as Necromancer or not. If you did, many spells are redundant with your original spell book so it ain't all that flashy (Corpse Rot Sublimation of Blood are good, though).
If you started with another background it offers a good way to start learning necro, esp if you get Pain and Vampiric Draining.

** - Necro misscast and death curses protection. I didn't get a necro far enough to experience stronger death curses nor did I cast many high level risky spells to know how to rate this. Sigh.

*** - the most awesome of levels. You get the second necrobook. It has many great spells in it. Agony lets you torment ANYONE in LoS, Dispel Undead makes up for the fact that many other necro spells don't work on undead as it deals obsene amount of irresistable damage. You get a choice of summoning spells and possibly also Bolt of Draining. All of this is VERY strong. Note that zombies cannot follow you up/down stairs but abominations and spectral things can.

**** - Sickness protection from Hount never like came into play for me, and while Torment Protection might not be the flashiest of benefits it does help as torment can be quite painful at times. Okish, I guess.

***** - pray on corpse, Torment everything in sight. I was mostly afraid to use this. While you do get Torment protection, and the effect of halving everybody's hp in half is strong, still the price is high. Probably works the best if you have army of undead to protect you from further harm (also they are torment immune). Seems powerful, didn't test it.

****** - your choice - a pain brand on any non-artifact or the Necronomicon. This is why you always play Necromancer with a fast, weaker weapon rather than a slow, stronger ones (whips over morningstars etc). It can do huge amount of damage, and if you are a stabber, jeez.  Necronomicon seems quite strong, high-risk high-rewards spell that I didn't use yet.


tl;dr - brand and books awesome. Rest situational/up to you to decide.

[Grujah]

query - what stuff do you guys stash? where?

Edit: also, you you triple-down? (find all stairs down, and go down and back up on each one, to gain more info about level).

[Grujah]

So, I started experimenting with Warrior-Mages today. Tried some combos, latest one was DsWr. I pregame decided that I'll go with Makhleb. And so I find Makhleb shrine on D:2. Great.

Than I find +27 Lear's hauberk, which pretty much disables my spellcasting if worn. I also find an anti-magic trident and an Amulet of Rage. I also get 2x horn mutation and you gain a 1x you gain power with damage. This is all early-game, too. (like, XL6-7, am 9 ATM).

This kinda changed my build, I must say. Might revert back to a caster later.
Edit: Just bought unindentified artifact shield from shop, it is a large shield +Blink, +Fly, rElec, MR++. +Blink kinda makes up for spellcasting, and rest is just gravy.
Edit2: Dead to a set of unfair, large open levels. Meh.

(I also found sabre of pain, rPois, +4Str, +2Dex, sigh).

[popsofctown]

I stash on Lair2 because all the guides say to.  Sometimes I just dump stuff wherever if I'm only half sure I'll go back to it.

I tend to stash elementally resistive stuff that I will need for different branches.  Like you can do shoals without corrosion or mutation resistance but you want to keep that in your stock for slime pits.

[popsofctown]

I only triple down when I am playing well and not lazy, so basically never

[heron]

I just died to poison while fiving, while I had a bunch of curing potions... ugh.

[popsofctown]

I have a game going on webtiles and one on local right now.  The one on local is a centaur focusing on axes that has somehow found just about every randart axe known to man (many of them gifted by Trog). 

The one on webtiles is a mummy wanderer that spawned with a basic necro book, level 5 fighting, and a mace (not with much skill at using the mace, but it beats the necro-background dagger). 
I assumed the best route to go would be necro magic, because I thought I remembered mages being the recommended class for Mummy.  But even after committing to magic a ton I'm doing like no damage with pain.  It's because my Int is low, it's lower then my other stats, even before you throw in the +5 str +3 dex ring I found.

So I feel like that was a mistake and the character is incredibly imperfect.  But he keeps finding really strong drops, including a dagger of distortion, which I am afraid to unequip ever since i found it because there's a risk of banishment, aka instaloss.
Dagger of distortion turns out to deal really good damage though, and I've hit two unique armors, multiple unique rings, and lots of scrolls to buff the dagger of distortion pretty strong.  I'm not sure whether to keep forcing a magic build or just get strength and dex and work my distortion dagger.  I worshipped vehemut expecting that to buff my pain damage, but he only buffs conjuration damages :/

[Grujah]

Mummies are good mages cause they have no spell hunger. You can make Pain deal more damage by learning a lot of necro..

Had an AWESOME HECj. He had so many tricks up his sleeve - conjure flames + searing ray, mephitic cloud + ignite poison (was gonna learn poison bolt for this too), learned blink as well and could just straight up spam fireballs.

Than I got killed by an fucking unseen horror that I couldn't fight at all as I didn't find anything to see invis whole game.

AAAARGH.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

So I finally caved and downloaded this. My first character, an Octopod Artificer, was not long for this world. Obviously Octopodes are the best race, so I'll keep trying that.

[popsofctown]

Octopodes seem like they could maybe be one of the best 15 rune run species, but I'm pretty sure they aren't the best 3 rune run species.

It's a pretty cool species though

[popsofctown]

Mummies learn necro slow, which kind of sucks.

[Grujah]

I mostly ignore Octopedes, Felids, Mummies, Ghouls, Demigods, Deep Dwarves, Gargoyles, Halflings and Ogres.

[popsofctown]

First rune!  Spider rune!

[popsofctown]

Died with 3 runes

[WalrusMcFishSr]

My best character so far was a Gargoyle Warper. I'm digging the Warper class.

[popsofctown]

My best character so far was a Gargoyle Warper. I'm digging the Warper class.

It's probably really good.  Translocation is so good that some of the high level branches forbid nonrandom teleportation/blinking.  You can beat the game without entering those branches though.

[Grujah]

Gargoyles are quite good too, they are getting a nerf in 0.14.

My current is (black) DrCj (of Sif). quite satisfied so far, didn't really find many books, got to XL10 with only basic Cj book.

[Grujah]

Died with 3 runes

Which char? MuWn?

[popsofctown]

Died with 3 runes

Which char? MuWn?

Oh no, the MuWn didn't make it very far at all, he was poorly built and that mattered more than his lucky drops.
It was a CeBe

[Grujah]

This spell:
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Iskenderun%27s_Battlesphere

Is SOOOOO Goood.

Edit: Apparently, this highly armored mage Louise can Banish you to Abyss. I didn't know that. And it is quite unpleasant if you are low on HP and MP. I made it out, somehow. (XL 15, cleared Lair/Mines). Ok, twice. Finally got her.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

I killed Sigmund! On Dungeon:4 as a Merman Gladiator. Those nets are a life-saver! And then I was rocking his enchanted scythe afterwards.

Only to succumb two floors down to ant poisoning

[Grujah]

Killing Sig early is always an achivement. Scythe, though, is usually bad as a weapon (unless the brand is really, really good).


Ugh, almost died to Frances in Swamp; she took like 3/4 of my hp with one spell (Iron Shot, I believe). Managed to get away; not sure if I want to go back, skip that floor or just go somewhere else.

Edit: I'm out of healing pots now (also no blink for quite a while), which ain't good. Still got some tps. Only transloc I've found so far is phase shift, ugh. Killed Frances, set fire to whole swamp floor in process. While it seemed like an OK idea, all that steam makes it so hard to navigate and not run into trouble.

[Jorbles]

I can't believe I missed this thread especially when Grujah specifically mentioned how he found DC:SS by googling me. I may have to start playing this again.

[Grujah]

What's your best score so far?

In other news, Lamia is freaking hard. I am not fighting her.

[Jorbles]

It hasn't changed since I played, which was a few years ago, but it's here. If I remember correctly I got picked off by a pack of ugly things though I can't remember exactly what happened, but it had to do with running out of food. I think I tried going to DL 13, it was too hard. I went back up to try and explore somewhere else, but some strong creatures spawned and ate me.

It had been a nice run, I was a High Elven Wizard. I'd gotten some nice spellbooks.  Sif Muna gifted me the Compendium of Torrid Confrontation, and I'd found the Book of Clouds and the Book of Air previously. I had found a really nice mace for a wizard, which I wasn't great using, but I'd decided it was better than the enchanted sabre I'd been using even with the much lower skill level I had with it (+4, +1). I was mostly trying to kill things with spells at that point anyways.

Code: [Select]

l - the +5,+5 mace of Brilliance {holy, rN+ AC+5 Int+5 SInv Stlth-}
   (You found it on level 9 of the Dungeon)   
   
   It has been blessed by the Shining One to cause great damage to the undead
   and demons.
   
   
   It affects your AC (+5).
   It affects your intelligence (+5).
   It protects you from negative energy.
   It enhances your eyesight.
   It makes you less stealthy.
I did not however identify my ring of sustenance (it hurt to see that in my inventory at the end of the game). So when I started to starve, and couldn't get past level 13, I tried to go back up to find monsters to scrounge for food so I could make a second attempt. Found ugly things who I guess killed me in my weakened state.

[Jorbles]

Man, I'm having a weird memory cascade of this run from analyzing the file. I was trying to make my way to the Elven Halls to scavenge for food in the first level or two, but I collapsed from exhaustion/starvation and a red ugly thing caught me.

[Grujah]

Luckily, I've found the ring of satiation early on, it helps A TON when playing heavy caster.

Just got the serpentine rune (in Snake Pit, I skipped killing Lumia, though). Now, realized I that I've under/overestimated few things about my char:

Sif. I knew that gift spellbooks are good. But channel energy is quite weaker than I though (gives a very little boost in MP, though is sometimes enough to get you out of a rough spot), but more importantly, Forgot Spell is way more useful that I imagined. Coupled with the huge amount of spellbooks, it basically allows you to adapt to any branch, as long as you diversify your spell schools - you just forget some spells and learn the needed ones. Need crowd control for Orc ? Get Meph Cloud and Fireball. Need poison for Spiders? Get Poison Cloud and Pois Arrow. Going Snake next? Forget poison and learn fire/air spells. Shoals? Repel/Deflect Missiles etc etc.

Black Draconian. I died enough times from Pikel's or Wraith's elec weapons and from elec eels (I even made them travel exclusive by default) to know how much rElec helps. And I did knew that that breath weapon isn't all that good, as even though it is powerful, esp later, it is just too random to be reliable. But I had NO IDEA how much at will, perma-flying helps. I basically beat Snake cuz on S:5, near the final lair where there were dozens of enemies, there was also a pool of lava. I basically cleared it but triggering aggro on few of them, flying into lava, and than spam them with Ice Clouds and various Bolts, while they cannot reach me. It was marvelous!


tl;dr - Sif's Forgot Spell and at-will permanent flying are both awesome.

[Jorbles]

I definitely enjoy playing casters the most and Sif Muna is a great deity for casters. I find the hardest part with spell casters is finding the spells you need to go somewhere though. The reason the above run did so well was that I had a good variety of strong spells early Mephitic Cloud, Repel Missiles, and Poisonous Cloud were essential to getting me as far as I did. I was just getting to a point where I needed to start playing around and forgetting spells when I died. Maybe next time.

[popsofctown]

I posted the tournament I want to run in forum games.  I'm hoping to get at least 4 people because I feel like it would be fun to at least see one guy show up the other three with his skills.  Ask any questions in that thread.

[popsofctown]

I love the little touches in DCSS.. when you kill Prince Ribbit he leaves "The human corpse of Prince Ribbit".  Much moral ambiguity.

[Grujah]

Yeah, I loved it one I found out that if you confuse a monster than making him asleep, he sleepwalks


ION, Dead.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Is that snail-covered slowness god worthwhile? If so, for what builds? I had a pretty cool Ghoulish Monk who died pretty much immediately after joining that. Could be coincidental though.

[Jorbles]

I feel like the snail god is one of the hardest gods to get good use of. Probably aimed at people who want a bit more of a challenge.

[Jorbles]

Made a new character. Immediately died to a lizard when I tried punching it to death instead of wasting MP.

[Grujah]

Chei is good for Naga Transmuter and some other guys, I think.

[heron]

I think that Chei pretends to be good for nagas but actually still sucks.
Also, why does the ring of sustenance help heavy casters?
As long as you're not vegetarian, I've always thought that there is plenty of food in the dungeon.

[popsofctown]

Is that snail-covered slowness god worthwhile? If so, for what builds? I had a pretty cool Ghoulish Monk who died pretty much immediately after joining that. Could be coincidental though.

I caught a bit of conversation between two people in IRC and they were cracking jokes about it being the best god in the game.  My inferences is that it's not a powerful god.


Keep in mind that Monks are best when they go barehanded, and barehanded is best for extensive runs, like 8+ runes.  The reason is that they need more skill levels than any other weapon to reach their maximum attack speed.  They have to reach 27, iirc.  Once they reach 27 they have high attack speed than many other weapons and better damage than shortblades. They are a really cool class and really fun to play, and I couldn't resist playing them several times, but keep in mind that dying early is what they're good at.  I have lately been really wanting to score a first win so have been saving them for later.

If you're going for 3 rune runs, going monk is probably more of a handicap than worshipping snails

[Grujah]

I think that Chei pretends to be good for nagas but actually still sucks.
Also, why does the ring of sustenance help heavy casters?
As long as you're not vegetarian, I've always thought that there is plenty of food in the dungeon.

Clearing large crowds where you cannot go in and butcher them half-way through eats through permafood very fast without it.

[heron]

I think that Chei pretends to be good for nagas but actually still sucks.
Also, why does the ring of sustenance help heavy casters?
As long as you're not vegetarian, I've always thought that there is plenty of food in the dungeon.

Clearing large crowds where you cannot go in and butcher them half-way through eats through permafood very fast without it.

Really? You know that you don't really get any penalties until 'Starving'? I have never experienced such problems before.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

What do you guys think about undead spellcasters? I tried a Mummy Ice Elementalist (mostly because I was annoyed with being so hungry) and it seemed to work ok.

[popsofctown]

Mummy is actually the only undead spellcaster that doesn't eat food.  The other ones have to eat.

However, any spellcaster can go on the zero calorie diet if they find the rare spell "Lich", found in randomly dropped books or earned from worshipping Ydremmul.  It transforms them into a hungerless undead with bonus power on necromancy spells, and you can refresh the buff to keep it going all the time.

Using the auto-eat and easy-eat functions from configs can make eating less of a pain though.

[heron]

Isn't that 'Necromutation' and you get it from Kikubaaqudgha?

[Grujah]

Isn't that 'Necromutation' and you get it from Kikubaaqudgha?

Yes.

And my DrCj really did have eating problems when casting a lot (I also later got "you digest meat inefficiently"). I do know that starving is the only bad one.

[popsofctown]

Made a new character. Immediately died to a lizard when I tried punching it to death instead of wasting MP.

Was it a Giant Gecko or an iguana? Iguanas are really strong and rarely appear on floor one, giant geckos are harder than goblins and rats but wouldn't normally annihilate you before you could figure out what was happening.

[popsofctown]

I think that Chei pretends to be good for nagas but actually still sucks.
Also, why does the ring of sustenance help heavy casters?
As long as you're not vegetarian, I've always thought that there is plenty of food in the dungeon.

Clearing large crowds where you cannot go in and butcher them half-way through eats through permafood very fast without it.

That's why you kill something with wand of disentegration and have a midfight snack

[Jorbles]

Made a new character. Immediately died to a lizard when I tried punching it to death instead of wasting MP.

Was it a Giant Gecko or an iguana? Iguanas are really strong and rarely appear on floor one, giant geckos are harder than goblins and rats but wouldn't normally annihilate you before you could figure out what was happening.

I think it was a gecko, but I can't remember anymore.

I actually had a fairly good run going today with a Minotaur Berserker. I thought I was going really far, but then I ran into Sonja, who I was about to kill when she banished me to the Abyss. I didn't know she could do that, but it sucked. I died quite quickly there I was nowhere near ready for the Abyss.

[popsofctown]

It's not too hard to survive banishment to the Abyss if you just run from everything and wait for a randomly generated exit door.  You can try playing Abyssal Knight a couple times to practice, they start in the Abyss at level 1, but more than half the time clever movement will allow you to escape. 

Just make sure your strategy is not to kill stuff when you get banished to the abyss.  That's not what you want at all.  I wouldn't even recommend oneshotting small stuff or using disables on things as you flee, every turn you spend not moving there are demons moving towards you from the area near you, but if you move in the direction of ungenerated terrain no monsters are there yet, so it's safer.  At least, that's how it seems.

[Titandrake]

Stopping by to say that I've been spending a lot of time on Binding of Isaac lately, which is a more of a rogue-lite according to people who have played more roguelikes than me. It takes so long to get there, but once you can beat the game semi-consistently, and you realize that you're getting more consistent every run, suddenly all your free time disappears.

As point of reference, working on 100%ing the game, I've gotten final unlocks for half of the characters so far, and every general achievement except for the annoying RNG ones.

[pacovf]

I loved the Binding of Isaac and spent waaay too much time on it. I've got all unlocks except the scissors, and I am missing the "don't get hit" achievements from most areas (although once I got reaaaaaally close to beating the womb without being touched, thanks to a flying high-speed high-tears build).

Have you beaten the chest yet?

[Titandrake]

Yeah. Acheivements/items I have left are:

Get 4 meat cubes (aka RNG: the acheivement.)
Common cold (which is also RNG, but I think it's weird I don't have it yet. You only need two items, and they're not THAT rare...)
Beat Sheol with Samson, Eve.
Beat Cathedral with Samson.
Beat Chest with Samson, Eve, ??.?

tl;dr I really do not like Samson. I don't like Judas either, but I just got two amazing back to back runs to Chest and Sheol today, so at least I never have to use him ever again.

Edit: Oh and no damage on depths or womb, but I'm focusing more on unlocking the items than the achievements.

[Grujah]

It's not too hard to survive banishment to the Abyss if you just run from everything and wait for a randomly generated exit door.  You can try playing Abyssal Knight a couple times to practice, they start in the Abyss at level 1, but more than half the time clever movement will allow you to escape. 

Just make sure your strategy is not to kill stuff when you get banished to the abyss.  That's not what you want at all.  I wouldn't even recommend oneshotting small stuff or using disables on things as you flee, every turn you spend not moving there are demons moving towards you from the area near you, but if you move in the direction of ungenerated terrain no monsters are there yet, so it's safer.  At least, that's how it seems.

I dunno what are the rules when banished, but it seems easier to do with AK XL1 as you are guaranteed an exit near your spawn point.

And yeah, unless you are ready to take on Lair Branches (Shoals etc) you shouldn't fight at all in Abyss, just run.

[Jorbles]

What do you guys do with Randarts you find that are not useful to your character?

[pacovf]

Yeah. Acheivements/items I have left are:

Get 4 meat cubes (aka RNG: the acheivement.)
Common cold (which is also RNG, but I think it's weird I don't have it yet. You only need two items, and they're not THAT rare...)
Beat Sheol with Samson, Eve.
Beat Cathedral with Samson.
Beat Chest with Samson, Eve, ??.?

tl;dr I really do not like Samson. I don't like Judas either, but I just got two amazing back to back runs to Chest and Sheol today, so at least I never have to use him ever again.

Edit: Oh and no damage on depths or womb, but I'm focusing more on unlocking the items than the achievements.

The 4 meat cube ones, having the book of revelations help, since if you use it, you are guaranteed a fight against a horseman at the end of the level (unless you've already fought one in this "zone"). Unlocking the forgotten horseman doesn't help, though.

I hate Samson. He's just the worst of all, with no life, no damage, no tears... I find dead baby is better than him! There are some objects that only activate when you're at half a heart or lower, and dead baby abuses them like no other. And he doesn't get lowered tears and damage either.

But I do like Judas. He's got insanely high damage, and his object is quite nice (increased chance to find Satan, which might translate into an angel room later on if you can't buy anything). He is dependent on finding a couple of heart increases quickly, though, so I can see why you don't like him.

But my favourite is Cain. He's quick, he's strong, and his initial object is nuts, both from the increase of drops, the always positive pills (bordering OP), and the better returns on fortune telling machines for crazy amounts of spirit hearts (which aren't capped, unlike red hearts). Seriously, all this for one less heart than Isaac and slightly less range.

[Jorbles]

On a new run with a new Minotaur Berzerker, and it's going even better than before. I managed to find plate armour early, found a good halberd (anti-magic), and found a ring of regen, which is incredibly useful to speed up resting.

Using those I've managed to get to the second level of the lair, where I now have max piety, and found !crystal plate! just lying around near a stair case. On top of that I decided to ID some potions in a safe spot and found the mutations potion when it gave me breathe fire, +2 strength and +2 int! Trog's started granting me branded halberds, nothing amazing so far (freezing and dragon-slaying), too. Some runs just go well.

(Having said this I'll probably die as soon as I start playing again)

[shraeye]

Tagging this thread.  Now that I've played a few games.  Also, I have virtually no idea what anybody is talking about.

[Jorbles]

Tagging this thread.  Now that I've played a few games.  Also, I have virtually no idea what anybody is talking about.

Sometimes people are talking about different games, which makes it extra confusing!

[Titandrake]

The issue I have with the 4 meat cubes achievement is that there are 4 zones, and you can fight a harbinger at most once per zone. So to get it, you need to fight the one for the first 2 floors out of sheer luck, because it's so unlikely you find a Book of Rev. Then you have to luck into a Book of Revelations. Then you have to hope neither Depths nor Womb is a labyrinth level, because I believe the boss replacement doesn't work there (probably because it tries to replace the forced boss fights instead of the one before it.) And you have to hope you never fight the Headless Horseman, or Conquest, because odds are you'll get a pony instead.

Basically, everything has to go right, and the odds of getting it without explicitly resetting every time you can't are stupid.

Also, I think Isaac + D6 > Cain, but that's just because D6 is stupid. Otherwise Cain is pretty unquestionably the best character.

[popsofctown]

What do you guys do with Randarts you find that are not useful to your character?

Some gods except them as sacrifice.  Some I might some day use, like a holy branded weapon from a skill i can crosstrain, I toss those in stash.  Draining and distortion ones I toss in lava

[pacovf]

The issue I have with the 4 meat cubes achievement is that there are 4 zones, and you can fight a harbinger at most once per zone. So to get it, you need to fight the one for the first 2 floors out of sheer luck, because it's so unlikely you find a Book of Rev. Then you have to luck into a Book of Revelations. Then you have to hope neither Depths nor Womb is a labyrinth level, because I believe the boss replacement doesn't work there (probably because it tries to replace the forced boss fights instead of the one before it.) And you have to hope you never fight the Headless Horseman, or Conquest, because odds are you'll get a pony instead.

Basically, everything has to go right, and the odds of getting it without explicitly resetting every time you can't are stupid.

Also, I think Isaac + D6 > Cain, but that's just because D6 is stupid. Otherwise Cain is pretty unquestionably the best character.

Yeah, is still luck based, but if you prioritize the book of revelations in your runs, I'd give you a 10% chance to get it in any given run, and... man, beating the womb 10 times, unlocking the chest, and beating Sheol and the chest with all characters takes a while.

How do you use the D6? It seems like the intended use is to reroll treasure rooms (since 50% of the objects there are pretty crappy) and boss drops (if you are particularly unlucky), and that's kinda tight in the first floors because of the lack of rooms. Plus, you'll have to drop the D6 at some moment for a more useful active object (book of revelations, nail, prayer card, you name it), while you keep the lucky foot forever. I don't know, I think that better starting stats and overall better stat progression from pills beats the extra reliability from early treasure rooms, unless there are ways to abuse the D6 that I don't know of...? I know there's an exploit involving libraries, but that takes a lot of luck and keys.

[Grujah]

On a new run with a new Minotaur Berzerker, and it's going even better than before. I managed to find plate armour early, found a good halberd (anti-magic), and found a ring of regen, which is incredibly useful to speed up resting.

Using those I've managed to get to the second level of the lair, where I now have max piety, and found !crystal plate! just lying around near a stair case. On top of that I decided to ID some potions in a safe spot and found the mutations potion when it gave me breathe fire, +2 strength and +2 int! Trog's started granting me branded halberds, nothing amazing so far (freezing and dragon-slaying), too. Some runs just go well.

(Having said this I'll probably die as soon as I start playing again)

I don't quaff-identify if I do not know potion of mut anymore. Esp not on L2. Though those are some good muts.

And I only find crystal plates with like Draconians and Spriggans, sigh.

[heron]

Also note that quaff-id is bad as it often wastes valuable resources like cure mut, speed, heal, etc. You usually have enough ID-Scrolls to ID all of your potions and a few scrolls.

[Titandrake]

The issue I have with the 4 meat cubes achievement is that there are 4 zones, and you can fight a harbinger at most once per zone. So to get it, you need to fight the one for the first 2 floors out of sheer luck, because it's so unlikely you find a Book of Rev. Then you have to luck into a Book of Revelations. Then you have to hope neither Depths nor Womb is a labyrinth level, because I believe the boss replacement doesn't work there (probably because it tries to replace the forced boss fights instead of the one before it.) And you have to hope you never fight the Headless Horseman, or Conquest, because odds are you'll get a pony instead.

Basically, everything has to go right, and the odds of getting it without explicitly resetting every time you can't are stupid.

Also, I think Isaac + D6 > Cain, but that's just because D6 is stupid. Otherwise Cain is pretty unquestionably the best character.

Yeah, is still luck based, but if you prioritize the book of revelations in your runs, I'd give you a 10% chance to get it in any given run, and... man, beating the womb 10 times, unlocking the chest, and beating Sheol and the chest with all characters takes a while.

How do you use the D6? It seems like the intended use is to reroll treasure rooms (since 50% of the objects there are pretty crappy) and boss drops (if you are particularly unlucky), and that's kinda tight in the first floors because of the lack of rooms. Plus, you'll have to drop the D6 at some moment for a more useful active object (book of revelations, nail, prayer card, you name it), while you keep the lucky foot forever. I don't know, I think that better starting stats and overall better stat progression from pills beats the extra reliability from early treasure rooms, unless there are ways to abuse the D6 that I don't know of...? I know there's an exploit involving libraries, but that takes a lot of luck and keys.

The library exploit is a bit easier than it seems. I believe the chance of a library room increases if you've visited one before, even if you don't carry a book into the next level, but I can't find this anywhere online so it might be false. It's still pretty luck based.

What makes the D6 good is that you can reroll devil room items. In the ideal D6 game, you get a devil deal on Caves 2. You either pickup or reroll into one of the passive items (like Mark, or Pact, or Brimstone, or maybe Knife if you're good enough at it.) Then, you try to get as many passive items as you can, before you find an active you absolutely cannot pass up. If you get lucky enough, you can keep the D6 into the chest, and get a second shot at all the items there.

You can also reroll the $15 shop items, in hopes that you get a Treasure Map or Compass, or secret room items in hope for Dr. Fetus or Epic Fetus. The main use however, is avoiding devil rooms that have awful items in them. If you're skilled enough, you can even go for Guppy and get it a decent amount of the time. I'm not that good, so every time I try I end up dying thanks to Dead Cat :/

[popsofctown]

Also note that quaff-id is bad as it often wastes valuable resources like cure mut, speed, heal, etc. You usually have enough ID-Scrolls to ID all of your potions and a few scrolls.

Quaff IDing stuff you have 3+ copies of is ok.  Bad mutation potions are too rare to get in triplicate, you're mostly going to figure out whether the stack is potion of confusion or potion of cure.

[Jorbles]

On a new run with a new Minotaur Berzerker, and it's going even better than before. I managed to find plate armour early, found a good halberd (anti-magic), and found a ring of regen, which is incredibly useful to speed up resting.

Using those I've managed to get to the second level of the lair, where I now have max piety, and found !crystal plate! just lying around near a stair case. On top of that I decided to ID some potions in a safe spot and found the mutations potion when it gave me breathe fire, +2 strength and +2 int! Trog's started granting me branded halberds, nothing amazing so far (freezing and dragon-slaying), too. Some runs just go well.

(Having said this I'll probably die as soon as I start playing again)

I don't quaff-identify if I do not know potion of mut anymore. Esp not on L2. Though those are some good muts.

And I only find crystal plates with like Draconians and Spriggans, sigh.

Oh it was way earlier in the run that I did the quaff IDing. Probably around D3. I like to play pretty loose at the start, if I die early I don't lose much time.

This run is going really well now. I've IDed almost every scroll, and finished the Lair and have started exploring the Orcish Mines. I think I can probably take the Shoals, as I'm a super turtle and have rElec and the ability to fly with a RandArt. Still haven't worked out if I have rPoison in my ring collection though. Bad luck IDing rings so the Spiders will have to wait until I work that out.

[popsofctown]

The shoals has lots of nasty poisonous sea snakes that will make you prefer to have rpois.  It's not strictly necessary but if it takes spending money at a shop it could be worth it.

On the other hand, nothing there is actually electric (it doesn't have electric eels or any normal fish stuffs) so that probably won't help much.

[Grujah]

Been pushing DsTm, DsSk and MeSk today. Been very unlucky. Am very frustrated as a result.

[shraeye]

I hope that someday I'll learn all of these crazy abbreviations.  The other day I made it down to the fourth level, yay.  Even if it's not much, that still felt like an achievement.

[Jorbles]

The shoals has lots of nasty poisonous sea snakes that will make you prefer to have rpois.  It's not strictly necessary but if it takes spending money at a shop it could be worth it.

On the other hand, nothing there is actually electric (it doesn't have electric eels or any normal fish stuffs) so that probably won't help much.

For some reason I thought that place would have lots of electric eels. Oh well, I'm almost done clearing the Mines now. Had to leave the final vault after taking a big chunk out of it when some orc high priests summoned too many demons to deal with safely.

[Jorbles]

Bought a randart armour with rPoison, but it's not my sweet crystal plate.

[popsofctown]

Now that you have it, Spiders may be a much easier rune.  I found spiders with rpois a good deal easier than shoals.  Granted, I didn't hit many uniques, but still.  The one thing to watch out for is the suppression moths, they cancel all magical effects on your items so they remove your poison resistance.  I just stayed away from those, they wander so eventually you can clear the rest of the floor without fighting them.

[pacovf]

What makes the D6 good is that you can reroll devil room items. In the ideal D6 game, you get a devil deal on Caves 2. You either pickup or reroll into one of the passive items (like Mark, or Pact, or Brimstone, or maybe Knife if you're good enough at it.) Then, you try to get as many passive items as you can, before you find an active you absolutely cannot pass up. If you get lucky enough, you can keep the D6 into the chest, and get a second shot at all the items there.

You can also reroll the $15 shop items, in hopes that you get a Treasure Map or Compass, or secret room items in hope for Dr. Fetus or Epic Fetus. The main use however, is avoiding devil rooms that have awful items in them. If you're skilled enough, you can even go for Guppy and get it a decent amount of the time. I'm not that good, so every time I try I end up dying thanks to Dead Cat :/

Hadn't thought of rerolling devil room items, for some reason. Guess I haven't played D6 Isaac enough. Yeah, I can see why people like him now (going for Guppy seems way too risky, though, if you don't find any of the pieces in a red chest beforehand)

[heron]

Argh! Autotravel into Aizul, he casts sleep on me before I get an action, I wake up at 2/3 health, and stupidly don't use invis/escape immediately. This run was going so perfectly too.

[Jorbles]

Now that you have it, Spiders may be a much easier rune.  I found spiders with rpois a good deal easier than shoals.  Granted, I didn't hit many uniques, but still.  The one thing to watch out for is the suppression moths, they cancel all magical effects on your items so they remove your poison resistance.  I just stayed away from those, they wander so eventually you can clear the rest of the floor without fighting them.

Decided to follow your advice and I've cleared the first few floors of the Spider Nest without incident. The most irritating thing I've found so far are ghost moths, who are unable to kill me, but are irritatingly successful at debuffing my stats. I just found this item. I have a Polearms skill of 18 so it seems possibly really useful on the surface, but it's constant cursing might make it unusable. I do have 12 scrolls of remove curse, but I'm not sure if I want to use them on this item. Do you have any experience with this weapon?

[Titandrake]

I got the 4 meat cubes acheivement! Got it while playing Eve, by lucking into my first 2 meat cubes and buying the book in Depths. I'm also on a good streak right now, just beat Satan with Eve, and Chest with Eve and ??.?. Just have to do all of Samson now, which is going to be completely awful.

[pacovf]

Samson is horrible. I was so glad when I finished his runs, so that I didn't have to use him ever again. His unlocks aren't even that good to begin with! But, yeah, completionism got the best of me. Just checked the wiki, apparently his starting item reduces the odds of getting better items too. I guess he's just meant to be hard mode... Good luck!

Yay for the meat boy achievement The one that took me forever to unlock was the Mom's eye/contacts one, for some reason.

By the way, what objects do you look for, in your runs? I usually try to get flight as soon as possible, which means spirit of the night (the closest there is to a reliable Win Condition item in this game, IMHO) or lord of the pit, and I buy the ladder before that; then I try to get some source of soul hearts (the nail from the Devil, the book of revelations from shop, library or Devil, or if lucky celtic cross), and a way to recharge active items to speed it up (battery, 6 volt and habit, all from the shop). Given how many rooms are made trivial by flight, I can stockpile an obscene amount of soul hearts by the time I get to the difficult zones and just bruteforce them.

Everything else is just the cherry on top. I usually try to get down to zero hearts (mainly through guppy's paw) to perma-activate some items (whore of babylon, polaroid). If I'm going for the Cathedral/Chest, then I try to get three orbitals (abusing the casinos, you can get a fly to orbit you randomly from any slot machine; two of those plus a meat cube/face is enough), since that drastically decreases the number of times you get hit by the tear spam. Or brimstone, but personally I don't like it that much. Another nice thing is high tears + cancer, even without knockback upgrades you can keep any single enemy at bay for as long as you want to because of the tear spam, but unfortunately if you are going to the chest you can't keep cancer (except with mom's purse)...

[Grujah]

Ok, artefacts.

So, my last char was red DrVM of Vehumet. Was GREAT. I also learned fireball and was clearing everything until I ran out of mana and was surrounded, and have previosly only found 1 of each tp scrolls, and read both before IDing them.

So, this char was DrVM, too. Turned out red, as well, and found a book with Iginite poison.
Also found an artefact: Wrath of Trog, Battleaxe +4/+11, antimagic, *Rage. Uhm no.

I then find a shop with these (I can't buy any, yet):
Ring, EV+5 Acc -1
Ring, rC+, Str+1, Acc+6, Dam+3
Ring, rElec, rF-, Str+1, Dam+6

all decent.
And THEN I find an artefact staff. No ID scrolls on me. Voice #1 says "don't wield-ID, you know it's gonna turn out bad" Voice #2, however, goes "Hey, you got uncurse scrolls, what's the worse that can happen?".
So I wield it.
Staff "Hell-Harrower", +Inv, rF+, MR+.
Pretty awesome, huh?
Also, distortion and Rage* (Bersekitis).

(I had +1 buckler and flail of protection earlier).
So, I risk Berserking in worst possible moment or being banished.

Huh.

Edit: so far, Berserkitis is not THAT bad. Will have to unwield eventually. Edit2: Dead, hubris, didn't cloud right away like I should have.

[Titandrake]

Samson is horrible. I was so glad when I finished his runs, so that I didn't have to use him ever again. His unlocks aren't even that good to begin with! But, yeah, completionism got the best of me. Just checked the wiki, apparently his starting item reduces the odds of getting better items too. I guess he's just meant to be hard mode... Good luck!

Yay for the meat boy achievement The one that took me forever to unlock was the Mom's eye/contacts one, for some reason.

By the way, what objects do you look for, in your runs? I usually try to get flight as soon as possible, which means spirit of the night (the closest there is to a reliable Win Condition item in this game, IMHO) or lord of the pit, and I buy the ladder before that; then I try to get some source of soul hearts (the nail from the Devil, the book of revelations from shop, library or Devil, or if lucky celtic cross), and a way to recharge active items to speed it up (battery, 6 volt and habit, all from the shop). Given how many rooms are made trivial by flight, I can stockpile an obscene amount of soul hearts by the time I get to the difficult zones and just bruteforce them.

Everything else is just the cherry on top. I usually try to get down to zero hearts (mainly through guppy's paw) to perma-activate some items (whore of babylon, polaroid). If I'm going for the Cathedral/Chest, then I try to get three orbitals (abusing the casinos, you can get a fly to orbit you randomly from any slot machine; two of those plus a meat cube/face is enough), since that drastically decreases the number of times you get hit by the tear spam. Or brimstone, but personally I don't like it that much. Another nice thing is high tears + cancer, even without knockback upgrades you can keep any single enemy at bay for as long as you want to because of the tear spam, but unfortunately if you are going to the chest you can't keep cancer (except with mom's purse)...

My general plan in most runs is to never take red heart damage. So I try really hard to get soul hearts early, usually by blowing up the special rocks. In devil rooms, items I'll look for are Mark, Pact, Brimstone, and Spirit of the Night. (Brimstone is only worth it with the Brimstone glitch, or with Poly/Quad/Triple Shot.) I used to not like Nail, but I'm coming around to it. Sometimes, I'll take Dead Cat, but that's only when it's not a big hit to me (like if I have 2 heart containers left, then it effectively costs 1.)

I also used to auto-take Spirit of the Night, but I'm starting to take Mark and Pact over it for the damage and soul hearts. There's also the issue where Spirit doesn't help you as much in the final floors, the layouts aren't as easy to exploit. My goal for every run is to get down to no red hearts + a lot of soul hearts for Polaroid, and to get enough damage to clear rooms quickly. I'm really awful at dodging enemies, so it's easier for me to play when I kill things before having to think about dodging.

Priorities for me are: Soul hearts > orbitals > damage > tears > health up (prioritized higher earlier so that I can afford devil deals, goes down after I get a couple nice items.) Flight is nice if I get it, but I'd take damage first unless I already have a lot of damage.

For active items, it's really what I can get. Unicorn + Gamekid are nice for the rooms I really don't feel like dodging in. Book of Rev/Nail are good for soul hearts. Book of Shadows is good for the endgame, but I'd rather have a good farming active before then. Paw is amazing if you get it at the right time, but I never do. (Unlocking more devil items didn't help.) Most actives I don't care about.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Do you guys know of a way to put DC:SS into full-screen mode? I tried alt-Enter, tried messing with the config file, doesn't seem to work. I've just been going into 800x600 resolution like a barbarian

[heron]

Do you guys know of a way to put DC:SS into full-screen mode? I tried alt-Enter, tried messing with the config file, doesn't seem to work. I've just been going into 800x600 resolution like a barbarian

Changing the init file has always worked for me. Did you remember to delete the # at the beginning of the line?

[WalrusMcFishSr]

I did...what were the settings exactly that you changed?

[heron]

I did...what were the settings exactly that you changed?

I just delete the # in front of 'tile_full_screen = true'.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

Yep, definitely did that...idk

[pacovf]

My general plan in most runs is to never take red heart damage. So I try really hard to get soul hearts early, usually by blowing up the special rocks. In devil rooms, items I'll look for are Mark, Pact, Brimstone, and Spirit of the Night. (Brimstone is only worth it with the Brimstone glitch, or with Poly/Quad/Triple Shot.) I used to not like Nail, but I'm coming around to it. Sometimes, I'll take Dead Cat, but that's only when it's not a big hit to me (like if I have 2 heart containers left, then it effectively costs 1.)

I also used to auto-take Spirit of the Night, but I'm starting to take Mark and Pact over it for the damage and soul hearts. There's also the issue where Spirit doesn't help you as much in the final floors, the layouts aren't as easy to exploit. My goal for every run is to get down to no red hearts + a lot of soul hearts for Polaroid, and to get enough damage to clear rooms quickly. I'm really awful at dodging enemies, so it's easier for me to play when I kill things before having to think about dodging.

Priorities for me are: Soul hearts > orbitals > damage > tears > health up (prioritized higher earlier so that I can afford devil deals, goes down after I get a couple nice items.) Flight is nice if I get it, but I'd take damage first unless I already have a lot of damage.

For active items, it's really what I can get. Unicorn + Gamekid are nice for the rooms I really don't feel like dodging in. Book of Rev/Nail are good for soul hearts. Book of Shadows is good for the endgame, but I'd rather have a good farming active before then. Paw is amazing if you get it at the right time, but I never do. (Unlocking more devil items didn't help.) Most actives I don't care about.

My priority would be like flight or source of soul hearts (and enablers, afterwards)> 2nd red heart > speed (unless high) > damage, and then it gets murky.
Flight is just so good. It allows you to avoid so much incoming damage, it effectively works as a source of soul hearts by itself (since it saves so many of them). AND it effectively increases your economy by allowing to reach chests/beggars that are closed in (pits, rocks or spikes). It pays for itself if you receive it by early depths, even forgetting about the whole "can't touch this" factor. It's one of the reasons why I am ready to pay for the ladder, even though it's somewhat rare to finish a run without a source of flight.
The second red heart is just because playing with only one red heart is obviously very dangerous (Judas, Samson), too many things can kill you because of random bad luck.
And speed because not getting hit (necessary to unlock the devil room) is simply impossible if you can't outrun your enemies and get out of the way of projectiles fast enough.

I think the only offensive active item I ever consider keeping (or buying!) is the candle. It's innate recharge ability makes it good for clearing normal rooms, and being able to use it more than once per room helps inmensely against a lot of bosses. Plus the way the fire propagates is different from the way your tears do, opening tactical possibilities, so it stays relevant even if you've got high tears and damage. I wish all the damage dealing items recharged themselves automatically, then a lot of them would actually be usable, unlike now, where finding an active item in a treasure room is like "ugh". I mean, of course I won't mind too much getting, say, the Necronomicon, but I know I'll have to drop it sooner or later, while passives will simply stay. Oh well.

[popsofctown]

Considering the init file is a very small txt file, why not just share yours with walrus, heron? just a suggestion. 

I currently have a webtiles run with a wanderer minotaur of Nemelex Xobeh.  One thing about webtiles is that you have to play slow, or else you'll die from lag, but on the other hand, you play slow anyway, it leads to some thoughtfulness.  With micromanaging and solid armor my character has scarecly fallen below half health since the Nemelex piety got going.  It's challenging my thinking about how much of MiBe's power is solid stats and headbutts, and maybe the beserkers are strong/fast when you measure in real time, but maybe not in turns taken time.

[Grujah]

So, after all this Cjs and Tms and VMs and whatnot, I decided to go brainless and do a MiFi.
So Gods are good and D:4 I find an artifact plate mail! (+7, rN+, nothing to write home about but extremely good D:4 drop).

[Grujah]

Note:

If you find a vault (vault is non-random room within a dungon) with 3 ugly things and a human wizard, with two rooms behind, and in one room is loads of very good jewelry, DO NOT open the room behind that. It has many abominations of all sizes and is deadly, I had to blink out.

[pacovf]

Seeing all the people talking about DCSS here, I decided to give it a try. After a couple of random tries dying by D3 (Naga Death Knight killed by a unique at the Sewers yay), I decided to read the wiki a bit, and rolled a MiBe.

Managed to reach D13, saw the entrance to the Orc Mines a while before that, but decided to try the Lair first, as said in the wiki. Didn't see the entrance at all. On the way there, I quaff a couple of potions of mutations and a potion of beneficial mutations. The first two turned out to be a bad idea, but the last one gave me the evolving trait, which over time gave me some kind of random mapping through walls, one extra AC, and carnivorous, and I was still evolving when I died.
I didn't have any spectacular equipment I think (+2,+3 battleaxe, right before I died, was the best I found for weapons, aside from a +2/+1 (unknown) whip of electrocution from Pikel, which I didn't use since I wasn't training flails and I didn't know how good the electrocution part was; also a +1 dwarven chain mail). Even then, I was pretty much going on a rampage, and I didn't even have to berserk to survive (I did use Trog's hand, maybe too often, though)

So there I went to D13. Didn't like the first stairs down (open zone and plenty of ranged enemies), so I try a second one. Quite open too, with some kind of unique necromancer, but since undead don't follow you across the stairs, I decide to make a stand. I cut through the undead minions, retreated to safety to heal, go back down the stairs again, kill the necromancer, go back up the stairs since pretty much the whole level is around me by then. Around 30 hp. Start resting. "It" hits me. I try hitting it back, but it moves randomly, don't really know where it is. Use a scroll of fog, it stops attacking me. The moment the fog dissipates, it comes back for more. I try to run. It runs faster than I do. At some point I manage to lose him. And I guess it's here where I do a mistake: I quaff a heal wounds and rest a short time, and go back to kill it before it regenerates too much, instead of just sprinting (or using my teleport wand, which I had forgotten I had) to the third set of stairs (I had to go through it anyway, no stairs where I was). At that time I hadn't understood yet how utterly random its movements were, and how fast it could pursue me, and the fact that it wouldn't turn visible at all. I die shortly after to the Unseen Horror.

A learning experience, I guess.

[Grujah]

Yeah, Unseen Horrors are a bitch without see invis. I just skip floors with them, most of the time. :s
Evolving is an awesome mut, you get 75% chance of gaining a good mut each time you evolve, one of my best chars had that.

Speaking of good chars, I had quite a luck so far:
http://pastebin.com/0dBxQ1aC


+1/+5 Triple of A-M is god gift, and is awesome.
+4/+5 flaming Great is god gift, that I re-branded, and it's use is for hydra slaying.
+0/+8 ring of slaying is gravy.
+9 Plate of +3Str +3Dex is not shabby.
Legendary deck of summoning is something that I didnt use before, but can't NOT be useful.
Amulet of faith is not going anywhere until I really need corrosion or something.

Edit:
YASD, didn't notice Sonja had draining, pretty much got ~20 negative skill levels, than a few more from maurice. I was getting slowsly back, but I was so bored and annoyed that I berserked into death. Meh.

[popsofctown]

webtiles is soooo slow, i don't understad how the majority of players say they prefer it to local just because it has trunk.

After hours and hours of play, I got the serpentine rune of zot.  2 more to go.  Stuff is getting harder, I think Nemelex doesn't scale well, he's kinda midgamey.

[pacovf]

Tried some short-lived fighters (orc warriors are dangerous, ID-wielding without scroll of remove curse is stupid), then tried a Kobold Berserker. The beginning wasn't particularly easy, but as my short blades and dodge skills went up, I started surviving most stuff, berserkering when necessary (I was always engorged starting from D8 or so). I eventually branched into sneaking, evocation and throwing (50+ tomahawks of return from the Bailey), and the best short blade I received from Trog was a +1/+8 quickblade, which was nice by then. Did all Lair but the last level, and I was carrying a ton of wands around. I even had boots of flying.

6h30 in, died to a centaur warrior in D13 who snuck on me as I was trying to kill an electric eel. Three arrows, around 30 hp each, 8 hp left (there was some lag with webtiles, otherwise I would have reacted after the second arrow). My instinct reaction is to check my scroll list. Read a scroll of fear, he's not impressed, so I blink-scroll out of his view. An electric eel that was out of reach of my fear scroll snipes me. I had two invisibility potions on me. 

PS: a bit tangential, but for something systematically marked as easy, electric eels are notoriously dangerous, since they don't follow you around corners...
PPS: found a +5/+7 falchion of electrocution with MR++, evoke invisibility, intelligence +2. Shame that falchions aren't short blades.

[Jorbles]

Electric eels are really dangerous without rElec. I usually just avoid them if I can if I don't have rElec, not usually worth the effort to kill off.

[popsofctown]

I note which floor the eels are on and go back and kill them once i get rElec because it's 90% reduction.

I just died on D14 or some such with 2 rune.  Disappointing.  Was exploring new floors of the main dungeon to get the Drain I acquired in the vaults to wear off. maybe I should have just scummed for that.

[Grujah]

Tried some short-lived fighters (orc warriors are dangerous, ID-wielding without scroll of remove curse is stupid), then tried a Kobold Berserker. The beginning wasn't particularly easy, but as my short blades and dodge skills went up, I started surviving most stuff, berserkering when necessary (I was always engorged starting from D8 or so). I eventually branched into sneaking, evocation and throwing (50+ tomahawks of return from the Bailey), and the best short blade I received from Trog was a +1/+8 quickblade, which was nice by then. Did all Lair but the last level, and I was carrying a ton of wands around. I even had boots of flying.

6h30 in, died to a centaur warrior in D13 who snuck on me as I was trying to kill an electric eel. Three arrows, around 30 hp each, 8 hp left (there was some lag with webtiles, otherwise I would have reacted after the second arrow). My instinct reaction is to check my scroll list. Read a scroll of fear, he's not impressed, so I blink-scroll out of his view. An electric eel that was out of reach of my fear scroll snipes me. I had two invisibility potions on me. 

PS: a bit tangential, but for something systematically marked as easy, electric eels are notoriously dangerous, since they don't follow you around corners...
PPS: found a +5/+7 falchion of electrocution with MR++, evoke invisibility, intelligence +2. Shame that falchions aren't short blades.

+1/+8 quickblade is awsome at any point of game. If you get it branded with a nice brand (distortion, elec, venom), it is a weapon to keep till endgame.

[Titandrake]

Got both Samson runs down. Beat Chest with a super ridiculous start, Brimstone + Book of Revelation on Basement 1 thanks to a Joker card, and lots of Tears Up and 3 orbitals. Sheol run was pretty ridiculous too, Dead Cat + Brimstone + Guppy's Tail + Lord of the Pit + 3 orbitals + Poly. Never touching Samson again, wow is he an awful character.

Just Common Cold plus the no damage achievements left. I would have gotten the Depths no damage achievement if I hadn't fought Bloat on Depths 1 and got hit instantly as the fight started.

[pacovf]

+1/+8 quickblade is awsome at any point of game. If you get it branded with a nice brand (distortion, elec, venom), it is a weapon to keep till endgame.

Yes, but the heavy armoured enemies simply ignored the damage from it. And a Goliath Beetle qualifies as heavy armoured. A flat damage brand can deal much more damage to some enemies, and Trog worshipers can't get their weapons branded (unless they pray to the RNG and use tons of brand scrolls, I guess). I mean, don't get me wrong, I was laying waste to pretty much everything on my way (even hydras, which surprised me when I was forced to stand my ground against one in the Lair), but some enemies took forever to go down, and my dodgy berserker kobold didn't really want fights to go on for too long...

Currently trying a Demonspawn Necromancer whose heritage insists that he wants to get up close and personal. Let's see how that goes.

Got both Samson runs down. Beat Chest with a super ridiculous start, Brimstone + Book of Revelation on Basement 1 thanks to a Joker card, and lots of Tears Up and 3 orbitals. Sheol run was pretty ridiculous too, Dead Cat + Brimstone + Guppy's Tail + Lord of the Pit + 3 orbitals + Poly. Never touching Samson again, wow is he an awful character.

Just Common Cold plus the no damage achievements left. I would have gotten the Depths no damage achievement if I hadn't fought Bloat on Depths 1 and got hit instantly as the fight started.

How did you manage to get Brimstone on Basement 1? Did the boss give you an extra heart container, and then you used the Joker card? If that's the case, then yeah, getting the book of revelations too is completely nuts. Shame about missing the third Guppy object on that Sheol run. The flies from transforming to Guppy are absolutely ridiculous.

Oh, and yeah, the thing I hate the most in this game (after Samson, of course) is Bloat. And he somehow appeared one time out of two in my runs. I just viewed it as a soul heart toll to get to the Depths II. I think no other boss was so proficient at consistently harming me, he's got nearly no tells, and the greeting beam is recognized as a bug.

[Titandrake]

I didn't get a health up, abused the starting soul heart to let me live with -1 heart containers, then used Book of Revelations to have 1 Soul Heart going into the next floor.

The full event list was
Floor 1: Open Secret Room, get 9 coins. Get Joker Card, use it to get Brimstone. Get Judgment card, beggar gives Book of Revelations.
Floor 2: Treasure Room contains Lucky Foot. Get Devil Deal, buy Mark to go to -3 heart containers. I had 2 soul hearts, lost them all, then got back 1 from the Mark, so it ended up pretty cheap.

Proceed to get lots of Tears Up pills, a couple Pretty Fly pills, a Fortune Telling Machine to farm soul hearts from...

[pacovf]

Oh, I thought that it was impossible to get two Devil Rooms in a row, unless the second one is because of the Joker card. Nice use of the soul hearts to get the items for cheap, though. Book of revelations from the beggar, and lucky foot on the next floor, well, that's definitely lucky!

[popsofctown]

Ok, so after learning a whole lot about Nemelex from that minotaur wanderer, I got a super crazy idea in my head.

There's a card that appears in ornate and legendary deck of wonders called "the shuffle".  It permanently swaps/rearranges the permanent values for your Dex, Str, and Int.  Most of the time you want to avoid that at all cost, because your stats won't match your skills anymore and you'll be hosed.

My crazy idea is to roll a Draconian Warrior and use the shuffle as a respec.  Warriors start out with 18 Str and you can level that even higher.  Level Fighting, Dodging, and Evocations, since they are all useful for a Nemelex caster, then worship Nemelex and rush max piety.  Once at max piety sacrifice a bunch of potions and food to skew deck gifts towards wonders.  Then spam the deck of wonders for the shuffle and try to shuffle the super high STR stat onto Int.  Then you can buy a book matching whatever kind of Draconian you turned out to be and start becoming a very smart caster.

It's pretty hard to get to max piety for Nemelex without investing experience into weapons skill.  After many dead draconians of a variety of colors, though, I have finally pulled this off.  I just now pulled a shuffle, and have a 24 Int poison draconian that is going to start reading the young poisoner's handbook I bought in the orc mines.  I am really lucky because I got Str moved to Int on my first try, and Dex is my second highest stat, which is what I want. My drac has a hand axe of distortion, which was a big help in getting to this point.  I've pulled 2 Experience cards so far and put those towards spellcasting and poison magic, gonna be all poison from here out.

It's a really really silly strategy, which makes it all the more fun.
If Heron or Grujah have more poison mage experience than I do I would love any advice on what spells to favor because I don't want this guy to die now.  But I've never played poison mage before.

[Grujah]

VM concern numero uno: what to do with undead/other poison immune things. Poison Arrow helps as it effects even poison immune, but it is a high level spell. Decks can help, I guess, but you need a permanent solution, which usually means branching into something else. Fire is OK, Air is better U guess as Air also makes Meph Cloud stronger. Straight Conjugation is not bad too. Depends on which books you find.

Mephitic Cloud is very very useful. You use it as crowd control, to disable casters, to get away.
OTR I guess is much better with rPois, but I always preferred direct damage spells over it (Poison Bolt, mainly).

Basically, my early tactics were always Meph on anything, than spam Sting. Later, Meph on anything and either OTR or spam Bolt (Sting when low on mana), choose one. OTR might be better on green Drac, and you can still spam direct spells as well.

That is until you find other spells.
Poison Arrow deals huge amount of damage, you use it for high priority targets. Poison Cloud is powerful, but not as much as Arrow or Freezing Cloud, I find (if you can cast that, like, by branching into Air, I would take it over).

[Grujah]

Actually, just remember why Fire is great too. If you find ignite poison, it ROCKS with both Clouds and especially OTR. Probably the better branch-out.

[Grujah]

Here is my green DrVM, made it to Lair..

Code: [Select]

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.13.1 (tiles) character file.

14530 Hops the Tainter (level 11, -24/76 (83) HPs)
             Began as a Green Draconian Venom Mage on Feb 23, 2014.
             Was an Elder of Kikubaaqudgha.
             Killed from afar by Harold (25 damage)
             ... with a bolt of fire
             
             ... on Level 2 of the Lair of Beasts.
             The game lasted 01:39:50 (15744 turns).

Hops the Tainter (Green Draconian Venom Mage)      Turns: 15744, Time: 01:39:50

HP -24/76 (83)   AC 10     Str 10      XL: 11   Next: 82%
MP   4/28        EV 13     Int 24      God: Kikubaaqudgha [****..]
Gold 582         SH  7     Dex 15      Spells: 10 memorised,  0 levels left

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : .   a - +7,+6 falchion of Dissolution {flame, rC+ Dex+3}
Res.Cold  : + . .   Warding    : .   (armour unavailable)
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : .   B - +0 buckler
Res.Poison: +       Res.Corr.  : +   (helmet restricted)
Res.Elec. : .       Clarity    : .   e - +0 cloak
Sust.Abil.: . .     Spirit.Shd : .   C - +0 pair of gauntlets
Res.Mut.  : .       Stasis     : .   v - +0 pair of orc boots
Res.Rott. : .       Flight     : .   D - amulet of resist corrosion
Saprovore : . . .                    x - ring of sustenance
                                     h - ring of flight

@: brilliant, quick, somewhat resistant to hostile enchantments, unstealthy
A: breathe noxious fumes, unfitting armour, poison resistance, AC +7
a: Breathe Noxious Fumes, Receive Corpses, Renounce Religion, Evoke Flight


You were on level 2 of the Lair of Beasts.
You worshipped Kikubaaqudgha.
Kikubaaqudgha was greatly pleased with you.
You were hungry.

You visited 3 branches of the dungeon, and saw 14 of its levels.

You collected 562 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 a - the +7,+6 falchion of Dissolution (weapon) {flame, rC+ Dex+3}
   (You found it on level 4 of the Dungeon)   
   
   It emits flame when wielded, causing extra injury to most foes and up to
   double damage against particularly susceptible opponents. Big, fiery blades
   are also staple armaments of hydra-hunters.
   
   It affects your dexterity (+3).
   It protects you from cold.
 u - a +2,+3 dagger of chaos (quivered)
 E - the +8,+10 mace of the Middle {drain, Int+3}
   (You found it on level 8 of the Dungeon)   
   
   A truly terrible weapon, it drains the life of those it strikes.
   
   It affects your intelligence (+3).
Armour
 e - a +0 cloak (worn)
 v - a +0 pair of orcish boots (worn)
 B - a +0 buckler (worn)
 C - a +0 pair of gauntlets (worn)
 K - a +0 cloak
Magical devices
 r - a wand of confusion (6)
 H - a wand of lightning (5)
 I - a wand of cold (8)
 S - a wand of polymorph (5) {unknown}
Comestibles
 c - 4 bread rations
 f - 17 grapes
 q - an apple
 w - 3 pears
 W - 3 rotting chunks of giant slug flesh
Scrolls
 g - 2 scrolls of magic mapping
 n - a scroll of recharging {unknown}
 p - a scroll of curse weapon
 y - 2 scrolls of remove curse
 L - 4 scrolls of enchant weapon I
Jewellery
 d - a cursed ring of teleportation
 h - a ring of flight (left hand)
 x - a ring of sustenance (right hand)
 D - an amulet of resist corrosion (around neck)
 T - an uncursed amulet of guardian spirit
Potions
 k - a potion of restore abilities
 m - a potion of resistance
 o - a potion of flight
 A - a potion of might
 G - 2 potions of agility
 O - a potion of magic {unknown}
 P - a potion of speed {unknown}
Books
 b - a Young Poisoner's Handbook   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   *Sting                             Conjuration/Poison           1
   *Cure Poison                       Poison                       2
   *Mephitic Cloud                    Conjuration/Poison/Air       3
   Olgreb's Toxic Radiance            Poison                       4
   *Venom Bolt                        Conjuration/Poison           5
 j - a book of Changes   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Beastly Appendage                  Transmutation                1
   Sticks to Snakes                   Transmutation                2
   Spider Form                        Transmutation/Poison         3
   Ice Form                           Ice/Transmutation            4
   Blade Hands                        Transmutation                5
 t - Kikubaaqudgha's Tome of Stolen Souls
   (Kikubaaqudgha gifted it to you on level 5 of the Dungeon)   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   *Pain                              Necromancy                   1
   Lethal Infusion                    Charms/Necromancy            2
   *Sublimation of Blood              Necromancy                   2
   Vampiric Draining                  Necromancy                   3
   Control Undead                     Necromancy                   4
 z - the Incunabulum of Destructive Lightness
   (You found it on level 10 of the Dungeon)   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Shock                              Conjuration/Air              1
   *Swiftness                         Charms/Air                   2
   Static Discharge                   Conjuration/Air              3
   *Mephitic Cloud                    Conjuration/Poison/Air       3
 J - a book of Hinderance   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Confusing Touch                    Hexes                        1
   Slow                               Hexes                        2
   Confuse                            Hexes                        3
   Petrify                            Transmutation/Earth          4
   Leda's Liquefaction                Hexes/Earth                  4
   Metabolic Englaciation             Hexes/Ice                    6
 M - a book of the Tempests   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Static Discharge                   Conjuration/Air              3
   Lightning Bolt                     Conjuration/Air              5
   Fireball                           Conjuration/Fire             5
   Tornado                            Air                          9
   Shatter                            Earth                        9
 N - Kikubaaqudgha's Grimoire of Sinister Arts
   (Kikubaaqudgha gifted it to you on level 9 of the Dungeon)   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   *Animate Dead                      Necromancy                   4
   *Agony                             Necromancy                   5
   *Dispel Undead                     Necromancy                   5
   Bolt of Draining                   Conjuration/Necromancy       6
   Simulacrum                         Ice/Necromancy               6
 R - a book of Wizardry   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Summon Elemental                   Summoning                    4
   *Agony                             Necromancy                   5
   Force Lance                        Conjuration                  5
   Fireball                           Conjuration/Fire             5
   Haste                              Charms                       6
   Invisibility                       Hexes                        6
Rods
 i - a +0 rod of demonology (13/13)
   (You found it on level 4 of the Dungeon)


   Skills:
 + Level 6.2 Fighting
 - Level 6.9 Long Blades
 + Level 4.3 Dodging
 - Level 1.7 Stealth
 - Level 10.0 Spellcasting
 - Level 4.2 Conjurations
 * Level 3.2 Charms
 + Level 8.0 Necromancy
 - Level 10.0 Poison Magic


You couldn't memorise any spells.
You knew the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Sting                 Conj/Pois      ####         1%          1    None
b - Sublimation of Blood  Necr           ######....   1%          2    None
c - Dispel Undead         Necr           ######..     1%          5    ###....
d - Pain                  Necr           ####         1%          1    None
e - Venom Bolt            Conj/Pois      ######....   1%          5    ###....
f - Swiftness             Chrm/Air       ####......   1%          2    None
g - Animate Dead          Necr           N/A          1%          4    #......
q - Cure Poison           Pois           ######....   1%          2    None
s - Mephitic Cloud        Conj/Pois/Air  #####...     1%          3    None
w - Agony                 Necr           ######..     1%          5    ###....


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (11/27)            Temple (1/1) D:5            Lair (2/8) D:10
   Orc: D:6-11     

Altars:
Ashenzari
Cheibriados
Elyvilon
Fedhas
Kikubaaqudgha
Makhleb
Nemelex Xobeh
Okawaru
Sif Muna
Trog
Vehumet
Xom
Yredelemnul
Zin
the Shining One
Beogh

Shops:
D:5 [[   D:7 [

Annotations:
D:4 Sigmund
D:6 Dowan; Duvessa
D:9 Joseph
Lair:2 Gastronok, Harold


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You can breathe blasts of noxious fumes.
Your lurid green scales are hard (AC +7).
Your body does not fit into most forms of armour.
Your cold-blooded metabolism reacts poorly to cold.
Your system is resistant to poisons.


Message History

Casting: Swiftness
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Okay, then.
Casting: Swiftness
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Okay, then.
Casting: Swiftness
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Okay, then.
Casting: Swiftness
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
You feel better.
You block the jackal's attack.
The jackal bites you but does no damage.
Harold points at you and mumbles some strange words.
The bolt of fire hits the jackal.
The jackal dies!
The bolt of fire hits you!
You die...
Kikubaaqudgha rasps: "You have failed me! Welcome... death!"

    .............
      #f....(.....
      ##j...h.....
      #.%.%.......
      ##Sz........
       #..#..###.#
      ##.#####
     ##.@##
     #.#..#     #
#####.#..######P##...P
...[......zS%@........
.##########@#.PP####.#
          #.#####
          ###


You could see Harold, a black mamba and a friendly giant frog zombie.

Vanquished Creatures
  The ghost of Gon the Spear-Bearer, a powerful MfGl of Fedhas (Lair:1)
  Pikel (D:9)
  A hill giant (D:10)
  An orc knight (D:10)
  2 black mambas (Lair:1)
  Psyche (D:8)
  A troll (D:10)
  A komodo dragon (Lair:1)
  A raven (D:7)
  The ghost of Ivica the Changer, an average DrTm (D:5)
  3 slime creatures
  14 yaks
  2 manticores
  2 necrophages
  A mottled dragon (D:10)
  2 porcupines (Lair:1)
  9 wolves
  4 sky beasts
  3 slaves (D:9)
  A yellow wasp (D:8)
  11 orc warriors
  A black bear (D:8)
  4 ogres
  2 phantoms
  A crocodile (Lair:1)
  3 centaurs
  An ice beast (D:8)
  3 gnoll sergeants (D:5)
  Blork the orc (D:8)
  2 water moccasins
  A big kobold (D:10)
  8 giant frogs
  8 killer bees
  A troll skeleton (D:10)
  3 wights (D:6)
  2 goliath beetles
  6 crimson imps
  7 hounds
  A giant frog zombie (D:8)
  4 jellies
  9 orc priests
  A gnoll shaman (D:5)
  A quasit (D:11)
  2 scorpions
  9 orc wizards
  A black bear skeleton (D:4)
  6 iguanas
  A manticore simulacrum (D:10)
  7 worker ants
  A hound skeleton (D:4)
  A worker ant zombie (D:10)
  17 gnolls (D:5)
  14 adders
  A giant centipede (D:9)
  2 giant mites
  4 worms
  5 giant eyeballs
  An ooze (D:3)
  48 orcs
  A ball python (D:5)
  A bat skeleton (D:6)
  5 giant cockroaches
  14 goblins
  11 hobgoblins
  14 jackals
  18 kobolds
  2 quokkas
  8 bats
  5 giant geckos
  6 giant newts
  A jackal zombie (D:6)
  An orc skeleton (D:5)
  An orc zombie (D:5)
  A quokka skeleton (D:5)
  11 rats
  2 rat zombies
  3 ballistomycetes (D:10)
358 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (collateral kills)
  A black mamba (Lair:1)
  A giant slug (Lair:1)
  A water moccasin (Lair:2)
  A giant frog (Lair:1)
  A killer bee (D:8)
  2 jackals (Lair:2)
  A quokka (Lair:2)
  A rat (Lair:1)
9 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (others)
  A slave (D:9)
  A komodo dragon skeleton (Lair:1)
  A wolf zombie (Lair:1)
  A jelly (D:9)
  A wolf skeleton (Lair:1)
  A crocodile zombie (Lair:2)
  A jackal (Lair:2)
  A giant spore (D:10)
8 creatures vanquished.

Grand Total: 375 creatures vanquished

Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1      | Hops, the Draconian Venom Mage, began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1      | Reached XP level 1. HP: 14/14 MP: 3/3
   221 | D:1      | Reached XP level 2. HP: 14/20 MP: 1/5
   742 | D:2      | Found a glowing silver altar of Zin.
   786 | D:2      | Reached XP level 3. HP: 14/26 MP: 0/7
   890 | D:2      | Learned a level 3 spell: Mephitic Cloud
   899 | D:2      | Learned a level 2 spell: Cure Poison
  1171 | D:2      | Found a sparkling altar of Nemelex Xobeh.
  1399 | D:3      | Reached XP level 4. HP: 15/33 MP: 2/9
  1767 | D:3      | Paralysed by a potion of paralysis for 4 turns
  2161 | D:4      | Found a shattered altar of Ashenzari.
  2266 | D:4      | Reached XP level 5. HP: 31/38 MP: 7/12
  2596 | D:3      | Identified a +0 rod of demonology (13/13) (You found it on level 4 of the Dungeon)
  2910 | D:4      | Reached skill level 5 in Spellcasting
  3067 | D:4      | Got a shimmering falchion
  3208 | D:4      | Identified the falchion of Dissolution {flame, rC+ Dex+3} (You found it on level 4 of the Dungeon)
  3334 | D:4      | Noticed an orc warrior
  3577 | D:4      | Noticed a phantom
  3585 | D:4      | Reached skill level 1 in Long Blades
  3585 | D:4      | Reached XP level 6. HP: 35/45 MP: 11/15
  3591 | D:4      | Noticed Sigmund
  3620 | D:5      | Entered Level 5 of the Dungeon
  3621 | D:5      | Found Xangui's Armour Shop.
  3635 | D:5      | Reached skill level 1 in Conjurations
  3652 | D:4      | Found a white marble altar of Elyvilon.
  3652 | D:4      | Found a burning altar of Makhleb.
  3652 | D:4      | Found an ancient bone altar of Kikubaaqudgha.
  3652 | D:4      | Found an iron altar of Okawaru.
  3695 | D:4      | Became a worshipper of Kikubaaqudgha
  3719 | D:4      | Reached skill level 1 in Fighting
  4270 | D:5      | Your scales start taking on a lurid green colour.
  4270 | D:5      | Gained mutation: Your system is resistant to poisons. [draconian maturity]
  4270 | D:5      | Reached XP level 7. HP: 39/52 MP: 16/18
  4318 | D:5      | Found a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple.
  4351 | D:5      | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns
  4358 | D:5      | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns
  4376 | Temple   | Entered the Ecumenical Temple
  4447 | D:5      | Acquired Kikubaaqudgha's first power
  4447 | D:5      | Received a gift from Kikubaaqudgha
  4477 | D:5      | Identified Kikubaaqudgha's Tome of Stolen Souls (Kikubaaqudgha gifted it to you on level 5 of the Dungeon)
  4481 | D:5      | Learned a level 1 spell: Pain
  4505 | D:5      | Found a sparkling altar of Nemelex Xobeh.
  4707 | D:5      | Reached skill level 1 in Necromancy
  4912 | D:5      | Noticed Ivica's ghost (average DrTm)
  4964 | D:5      | Found Viyhey's Armour Shoppe.
  5731 | D:6      | Noticed Duvessa
  5768 | D:6      | Noticed Dowan
  6184 | D:6      | Reached XP level 8. HP: 59/59 MP: 15/19
  6669 | D:5      | Killed Ivica's ghost
  6951 | D:5      | Learned a level 4 spell: Control Undead
  6956 | D:5      | Learned a level 4 spell: Olgreb's Toxic Radiance
  6959 | D:5      | Learned a level 2 spell: Sublimation of Blood
  7086 | D:7      | Found Irutaho's Antique Armour Shop.
  7108 | D:7      | Reached skill level 5 in Necromancy
  7175 | D:7      | Reached skill level 6 in Spellcasting
  7175 | D:7      | Reached skill level 5 in Poison Magic
  7210 | D:7      | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns
  7217 | D:7      | Noticed a raven
  7300 | D:7      | Acquired Kikubaaqudgha's second power
  7528 | D:7      | Reached XP level 9. HP: 50/60 MP: 7/22
  7543 | D:7      | Reached skill level 5 in Long Blades
  7678 | D:7      | Found a bloodstained altar of Trog.
  7923 | D:7      | Killed a raven
  8154 | D:8      | Got a crude mace
  8173 | D:8      | Identified the mace of the Middle {drain, Int+3} (You found it on level 8 of the Dungeon)
  8366 | D:8      | Reached skill level 7 in Necromancy
  8400 | D:8      | Noticed Psyche
  8412 | D:8      | Killed Psyche
  8508 | D:8      | Noticed Blork the orc
  8522 | D:9      | Noticed Pikel
  8660 | D:8      | Killed Blork the orc
  8916 | D:8      | Reached XP level 10. HP: 65/70 MP: 4/23
  9265 | D:9      | Killed Pikel
  9265 | D:9      | Received a gift from Kikubaaqudgha
  9272 | D:9      | Identified Kikubaaqudgha's Grimoire of Sinister Arts (Kikubaaqudgha gifted it to you on level 9 of the Dungeon)
  9397 | D:9      | Reached skill level 8 in Poison Magic
  9623 | D:9      | Noticed Joseph
  9652 | D:10     | Entered Level 10 of the Dungeon
  9832 | D:10     | Found a staircase to the Lair.
  9873 | D:10     | Learned a level 5 spell: Agony
  9888 | Lair:1   | Entered Level 1 of the Lair of Beasts
  9959 | Lair:1   | Reached skill level 9 in Poison Magic
 10443 | D:10     | Identified the Incunabulum of Destructive Lightness (You found it on level 10 of the Dungeon)
 10660 | D:10     | Found a roughly hewn altar of Beogh.
 10677 | D:10     | Acquired Kikubaaqudgha's third power
 11585 | D:10     | Learned a level 5 spell: Venom Bolt
 11818 | D:10     | Noticed a hill giant
 11843 | D:10     | Killed a hill giant
 11843 | D:10     | Reached skill level 5 in Fighting
 11843 | D:10     | Reached skill level 10 in Poison Magic
 11843 | D:10     | Reached XP level 11. HP: 59/74 MP: 10/26
 12927 | Lair:1   | Noticed a black mamba
 12946 | Lair:1   | Killed a black mamba
 12970 | Lair:1   | Noticed a black mamba
 12977 | Lair:1   | Killed a black mamba
 13018 | Lair:1   | Noticed Gon's ghost (powerful MfGl)
 13071 | D:10     | HP: 2/74 [wolf (5)]
 13415 | D:10     | Learned a level 5 spell: Dispel Undead
 13418 | D:10     | Learned a level 2 spell: Swiftness
 14012 | D:10     | Reached skill level 10 in Spellcasting
 14095 | D:10     | Acquired Kikubaaqudgha's fourth power
 14356 | D:10     | Noticed an orc knight
 14368 | D:10     | Killed an orc knight
 14368 | D:10     | Reached skill level 1 in Charms
 14600 | D:10     | Found a burning altar of Makhleb.
 14608 | D:10     | Found a glowing silver altar of Zin.
 15088 | Lair:1   | Learned a level 4 spell: Animate Dead
 15275 | Lair:1   | Noticed a black mamba
 15284 | Lair:1   | Killed a black mamba
 15536 | Lair:1   | Killed Gon's ghost
 15555 | Lair:1   | Noticed a four-headed hydra
 15713 | Lair:2   | Noticed Gastronok
 15717 | Lair:2   | Noticed Harold
 15739 | Lair:2   | HP: 2/76 [black mamba (18)]
 15744 | Lair:2   | Killed from afar by Harold


Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 |  7- 9 | 10-12 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------++-------
Melee: Dagger            |    42 |   129 |       |       ||   171
       Falchion          |       |    72 |   203 |   236 ||   511
 Cast: Sting             |    42 |    72 |   106 |    83 ||   303
       Mephitic Cloud    |       |     9 |    57 |   101 ||   167
       Pain              |       |       |    80 |   196 ||   276
       Olgreb's Toxic Ra |       |       |     1 |     1 ||     2
       Agony             |       |       |       |    17 ||    17
       Sublimation of Bl |       |       |       |     5 ||     5
       Venom Bolt        |       |       |       |    13 ||    13
       Swiftness         |       |       |       |     6 ||     6
       Dispel Undead     |       |       |       |     5 ||     5
       Animate Dead      |       |       |       |     2 ||     2
       Cure Poison       |       |       |       |     2 ||     2
Invok: Receive Corpses   |       |       |       |     1 ||     1
       Torment           |       |       |       |     1 ||     1
 Abil: Breathe Noxious F |       |       |     8 |    12 ||    20
       Evoke Flight      |       |       |     4 |       ||     4
Evoke: Wand              |       |     2 |     5 |     9 ||    16
  Use: Scroll            |       |    17 |     9 |     8 ||    34
       Potion            |       |     5 |     3 |     5 ||    13
 Stab: Sleeping          |     1 |       |       |     1 ||     2
       Confused          |       |       |     2 |     7 ||     9




In the other news, I didn't really knew what Nessos did (that he could blink), and my very awesome MfSk died to his poison cuz I was out of curings. AAAAAARGH. I was going pretty good and died in freaking swamps (no, didn't have rPois either, yes, in Swamps).

[pacovf]

How can you get the character dump after your death in Webtiles?

I need counsel from the wise for my Demonspawn Necromancer of Kiku. I managed to max piety, and I am going to grab the Necronomicon for Necromutation, and later Haunt. Right now my main damage dealing method are Abominations, of which I've got 6. I tank the damage (I've got 20 EV and 26 AC, even though I am wearing a robe) and let the abominations lay waste to everything.

But I am thinking about abandoning Kiku in favour of a god that let's me put the demonspawn 3 aptitude in invocations to good use. Say, Makhleb. The reasoning being that once in Lichform, spell hunger won't be an issue anymore, so I'd rather train something else than spellcasting (-1 aptitude) to increase my max MP. Hence, invocations. Is that a good idea? Will I be able to survive Kiku's wrath? I can share my char dump when I can access my computer, but for reference, I am level 13, cleared Lair and Orc mines except from their last levels.

[Grujah]

Last levels of Lair are usually safe (sans Rupert). Orc can be tricky.

I've never actually asked for Necronomicon (always went for pain). His punishment seems pretty harsh, esp if he torments you. You can try to avoid the punishment by waiting it out/abandoning the floor as undeads won't follow. Do not that he will turn all your Minions hostile once you abandon.

Now, I don't think that changing the god just to "make good use of Invo" is that great idea. How useful Makhleb really is? Healing certainly is. Destruction - well, depends. If you focus on summonings, it is random and you will be hitting your guys too. If you are focusing on torment, it is great way to finish off guys. Demons seem redundant if you already have a lot of summons, but can help, I guess.

Dump will help a lot, I am not quite sure myself :s

[popsofctown]

theoretically you could go to Dungeon level 2 or 1, spam lich until you kill everything on the floor (it will spawn out of depth monsters for a little while, but infrequently, and then after many turns it will stop spawning anything), then you could abandon kikku and spam lich more to deal with his wrath on an empty floor.

[Grujah]

theoretically you could go to Dungeon level 2 or 1, spam lich until you kill everything on the floor (it will spawn out of depth monsters for a little while, but infrequently, and then after many turns it will stop spawning anything), then you could abandon kikku and spam lich more to deal with his wrath on an empty floor.

If you gonna do that it's easier to just go to temple.

[pacovf]

Code: [Select]

pacovf the Reanimator (Demonspawn Necromancer)     Turns: 24468, Time: 07:53:38

HP 103/103       AC 26     Str 10      XL: 13   Next: 67%
MP  27/27        EV 20     Int 20      God: Kikubaaqudgha [******]
Gold 1748        SH  0     Dex 18      Spells:  6 memorised,  6 levels left

rFire  + . .     SeeInvis .     f - +2 trident (protect)
rCold  . . .     Clarity  .     t - +2 robe {MR+}
rNeg   . . .     Conserve .     (no shield)
rPois  +         rCorr    .     l - +1 hat
rElec  .         rRot     .     s - +2 cloak {rPois}
SustAb . .       Spirit   +     r - +2 pair of gloves
rMut   .         Warding  .     v - +1 pair of boots {Fly}
Saprov + . .     Stasis   .     (no amulet)
MR     +....                    x - ring of protection from fire
                                M - ring of poison resistance

@: flying, somewhat resistant to hostile enchantments, quite stealthy
A: horns 2, iridescent scales 3, agile 2, saprovore 1, wild magic 1, magic
shield
a: Receive Corpses, Torment, Renounce Religion, Stop Flying


You are on level 11 of the Dungeon.
You worship Kikubaaqudgha.
Kikubaaqudgha is exalted by your worship.
You are not hungry.

You have visited 4 branches of the dungeon, and seen 22 of its levels.

You have collected 1853 gold pieces.
You have spent 105 gold pieces at shops.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 f - a +2,+2 trident of protection (weapon)
Armour
 l - a +1 hat (worn)
 r - a +2 pair of gloves (worn)
 s - a +2 cloak of poison resistance (worn)
 t - a +2 robe of magic resistance (worn)
 v - a +1 pair of boots of flying (worn)
 B - the +4 robe of the Leaf {rF+}
   (You found it on level 9 of the Dungeon)   
   
   It protects you from fire.
Magical devices
 q - a wand of draining {zapped: 4}
 w - a worn gold wand
 L - a crooked brass wand
 Q - a wand of paralysis {zapped: 1}
Comestibles
 a - a sausage
 b - a chunk of shark flesh
 c - 16 bread rations
 g - a strawberry
 z - 10 grapes
 D - 7 oranges
 N - a rambutan
 S - 2 meat rations
Scrolls
 d - a scroll of remove curse
 h - a scroll of enchant weapon II
 j - 2 scrolls of enchant armour
 m - a scroll labeled BAYSHR TERYI
 p - 3 scrolls of identify
 A - a scroll labeled WYHISIMUTO
 C - a scroll of teleportation
 G - 2 scrolls of magic mapping
 H - a scroll labeled XEOJECL ETIOJE
 I - a scroll labeled SKEMU TUEGUX
 K - a scroll labeled ALATEO HUIHUTU
 O - a scroll labeled CLIAQOEHILI
Jewellery
 x - a ring of protection from fire (right hand)
 M - a ring of poison resistance (left hand)
Potions
 e - 2 glowing silvery potions
 i - 5 potions of curing
 k - 2 potions of resistance
 o - 2 gluggy white potions
 u - 2 sedimented yellow potions
 J - a potion of agility
 R - a potion of berserk rage
 V - a fuming brown potion
 Y - a potion of magic
Books
 n - a book of the Dragon   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Flight                             Charms/Air                   3
   Cause Fear                         Hexes                        4
   Bolt of Fire                       Conjuration/Fire             6
   Dragon Form                        Transmutation                7
   Dragon's Call                      Summoning                    9
 F - Kikubaaqudgha's Incunabulum of Black Rituals
   (Kikubaaqudgha gifted it to you on level 8 of the Dungeon)   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   *Animate Skeleton                  Necromancy                   1
   Corpse Rot                         Necromancy                   2
   Sublimation of Blood               Necromancy                   2
   *Vampiric Draining                 Necromancy                   3
   Control Undead                     Necromancy                   4
 T - Kikubaaqudgha's Catalogue of Stolen Souls
   (Kikubaaqudgha gifted it to you on level 3 of the Lair of Beasts)   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   Excruciating Wounds                Charms/Necromancy            5
   Bolt of Draining                   Conjuration/Necromancy       5
   *Agony                             Necromancy                   5
   Dispel Undead                      Necromancy                   5
   *Twisted Resurrection              Necromancy                   5


   Skills:
 + Level 9.8 Fighting
   Level 2.0 Short Blades
 * Level 10.0 Polearms
 - Level 1.2 Armour
 + Level 9.8 Dodging
 - Level 5.0 Stealth
 + Level 6.9 Spellcasting
   Level 1.0 Charms
 + Level 14.1 Necromancy
 - Level 3.1 Evocations


You have 6 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Pain                  Necr           ####         1%          1    None
b - Animate Skeleton      Necr           N/A          1%          1    None
c - Vampiric Draining     Necr           #######...   1%          3    ##.....
d - Animate Dead          Necr           N/A          2%          4    ###....
e - Agony                 Necr           #######.     3%          5    #####..
f - Twisted Resurrection  Necr           #######...   3%          5    #####..


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (11/16)            Temple (1/1) D:6             Orc (3/4) D:11
    Elf (0/3) Orc:2 Orc:3    Lair (7/8) D:10          Swamp (0/5) Lair:5
 Spider (0/5) Lair:5        Slime (0/6) Lair:6     

Altars:
Ashenzari
Cheibriados
Dithmenos
Elyvilon
Fedhas
Kikubaaqudgha
Makhleb
Nemelex Xobeh
Okawaru
Sif Muna
Trog
Vehumet
Xom
Yredelemnul
Zin
The Shining One
Beogh

Shops:
D:7 *   Orc:1 %   Orc:2 (   Orc:3 [

Annotations:
D:6 exclusion: oklob plant


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You have a pair of horns on your head.
You are completely covered in iridescent scales (AC +8).
You can tolerate rotten meat.
When hurt, damage is shared between your health and your magic reserves.
You are very agile. (Dex +4)
Your spells are a little harder to cast, but a little more powerful.
The idea with changing gods is also to cover some of the weaknesses of this guy. Forgetting about the abominations (since they'll start falling like flies when I reach AoE-able enemies), I've got no easy way to dispose of negative energy resistant enemies, and I've got no panic button. Branching into new magic schools is difficult because of the -1 aptitude of Demonspawns in the relevant schools (charms, translocations). Makhleb gives me ranged attacks that (mostly) ignore negative energy resistance, and let's me invoke demons, should I find myself without my undead minions (getting a new army from scratch is notoriously difficult). Another possibility would be Lugonu, which gives two panic buttons, and the distortion brand, but no ranged attacks, and I haven't found its altar anyway...

Of course, I could choose to learn Death's Door instead of Necromutation, but I am finding it quite difficult to keep my undead army while feeding myself.

[Grujah]

Aren't most enemies with rN+ (++) undeads? You have Dispeal Undead. It's super efficient.

Your reasoning for Makhleb seem fine, go for it. Lugonu has better panic button but he is nigh impossible to find before Abyss.

[Jorbles]

Does rPois stack? You appear to have two sources of it (ring and cloak), and the resistances charts doesn't indicate that it stacks.

Also is mana shield the same as magic shield? If it is, how did you get that? That's a super good ability.

edit: realized if it is the same you got it from demonspawn luck.

[Grujah]

No, it does not.

rN stacks up to 3, also rC and rF stack up to -3 or +3. MR+ stacks indefinetely, I think. rN does not, but I think it gives like 90% chance to resist poison anyway.

Mana Shield? What do you mean, like guardian spirit/song of defense? or like Ozobu's Armour/TSO's shield?

Yeah, it the DS mutation, works like guardian spirit.

[Jorbles]

I was just confused because it was called "magic shield" in the char sheet, but "mana shield" in the wiki.

[pacovf]

All non-natural entities have negative energy inmunity. Elementals and gargoyles are the only non-undead I've encountered yet, but more will come. Can't really say that a +2 trident of protection is dealing much damage, with only 10 strength. Anyway, can't learn necromutation yet, I'll wait for that before incurring Kiku's wrath. Having to rebuild my abomination army, now that the Orcish Mines are mostly cleared, will hurt.

I've got only two rings, so you know, don't think too much about my double poison resistance.

And yeah, I've been incredibly lucky with mutations. Especially that one time where I was reduced to 3 hp and poisoned fighting Erica, who was having great fun confusing my undead minions. I was reduced to frantically quaffing un-ID'd potions, looking for potions of curing/healing (levels D9-D10-D11 were VERY interesting; Psyche spawned at the end of D9, 4 uniques spawned on D10, and D11 was an open area with roaming orc packs before I could actually tackle them). I somehow survived that, quaffing a potion of mutations in the process, which gave me +4 dex and wild magic XD. Oh, and +8 AC from iridiscent scales 3 is not too shabby either. Guardian spirit was annoying at first, though, since it prevented me from casting vampiric draining at crucial times.

[Grujah]

Why don't you have Curing/Healing IDed before D9? Thats not good.

My recent MfSk encountered 4 uniques on D10 too, and they were Grum, Erolcha, Erica and Urug. (and a ghost as well). Made short work of all of them except Erica who was a problem but I teared her down.

And yeah, Guardian Sprit seems less than idea, but you do have an army o protect you.

[Grujah]

O yeah, thinking about going with Namelex soon with a few chars, a short course in using him would be nice. Pops?

edit: Lol, anybody else got "you are too terrified to walk while being watched!"? XD

edit2: OMG. I just found a super easy way to defeat Pikel. Just Charm him (Enslavement/Wand). Slaves turn neutral, than when he becomes un-charmed again they kill him. Super awesome.

[pacovf]

Why don't you have Curing/Healing IDed before D9? Thats not good.

My recent MfSk encountered 4 uniques on D10 too, and they were Grum, Erolcha, Erica and Urug. (and a ghost as well). Made short work of all of them except Erica who was a problem but I teared her down.

And yeah, Guardian Sprit seems less than idea, but you do have an army o protect you.

Guardian spirit is alright now, since most of my spellcasting is done outside combat. But I wasn't happy at first.

My ID'ing policy is: when I enter a new level, I read any scroll of which I have at least 2, until I've found the panic-button ones (teleport, blink, cause fear, mainly. Remove curse is important too). Quaff potions if I've got at least three of them. If I am swimming in identify scrolls (more than three), then I use them to identify the potions I have the least of.

I still haven't identified potion of healing wounds

My four uniques were Sonja (with short blade of distortion), Erica, Harold, and I-am-sure-you-don't-need-that-wand-of-paralysis (and many other things) Maurice. Encountered Maurice, a troll and an ogre, all very close to me, as soon as I reached D10, fleeing from Psyche. Fled to D11, encountered two orc warriors, two orc wizards, and some normal orcs. After some fighting, fled to D10 again, encountered Maurice again, who fled after stealing my stuff and heavily damaging me as I was taking care of Sonja, then encountered Erica briefly after a couple of corpse deliveries from Kiku. Luckily, things got better afterwards. I thought I was dead more than once during those 40 minutes.

[Grujah]

Now, I'm ok with dying when I am stupid, but like this.. argh.

So, I am at D:10, SpEn. I run into Fannar, and decide that I don't want to fight immediately as he is resistant to sleep (I probably could have won, with Confuse or Invis, but I really didn't want to fight), so I got a level down. I am in a metal-walled smallish triangle room of sorts. Think about going up, but he gets a spell on me right away, though in hindsight I could have gone invis and went back as this turned out to be a vault, but I didn't except what was about to happen.

so, I go east, there is a longer metal wall and a door. I open the door. What I see?

Yakataur Captain and Stone Giant. On D:11. GOSH. I didn't find Orc Mines yet.


I get struck with an arrow, on 25% of hp now. Probably should have casted invis, but I try to back out, large rock to the face, dead.
I HATE THIS GAME.

[popsofctown]

I'm pretty sure the people who told me INT doesn't affect deck of destruction effects were bullshitting me.  Everything I draw is one shotting now that my INT is so high.

[popsofctown]

Ok, maybe the first few rolls were lucky.

[WalrusMcFishSr]

My first rune-getting character just died! He got 3 in fact!...Serpentine, Barnacled, and Silver. But then succumbed to a yaktaur...why is it always the yaktaurs. I ate a bread ration at an extremely foolish moment.

So passes the greatness of Garg, the Gargoyle Berserker of Trog. I'm not even mad for once, I'm just happy to know it's theoretically possible to make progress in this game. I might practice now with a character who actually knows how to read lol.

Here's the dump:

Code: [Select]

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.13.1 (console) character file.

408040 Garg the Shatterer (level 23, -5/159 HPs)
             Began as a Gargoyle Berserker on Mar 11, 2014.
             Was a High Priest of Trog.
             Shot with a silver bolt by a yaktaur captain (26 damage)
             ... on Level 23 of the Dungeon.
             The game lasted 06:29:56 (63950 turns).

Garg the Shatterer (Gargoyle Berserker)            Turns: 63950, Time: 06:29:56

HP  -5/159       AC 48     Str 25      XL: 23   Next:  4%
MP  33/33        EV 22     Int 13      God: Trog [*****.]
Gold 2630        SH 38     Dex 21      Spells:  0 memorised, 24 levels left

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : .   L - +3,+10 eveningstar of Greatest Utility {venom, Dex+3 Int+2}
Res.Cold  : + + .   Warding    : .   t - +3 ice dragon armour
Life Prot.: + + .   Conserve   : .   z - +6 shield of the gong {rElec rN+ MR+}
Res.Poison: +       Res.Corr.  : .   O - -1 helmet of Liberty {Dex+4 Int+2}
Res.Elec. : +       Clarity    : .   n - -1 cloak
Sust.Abil.: . .     Spirit.Shd : .   S - +0 pair of gauntlets
Res.Mut.  : +       Stasis     : .   J - +0 pair of boots
Res.Rott. : +       Flight     : .   Z - amulet of the Gloaming {rMut rF+ Acc+3}
Saprovore : . . .                    P - +6 ring of evasion
                                     o - +6 ring of protection

@: regenerating, extraordinarily resistant to hostile enchantments, extremely
unstealthy
A: large and strong wings, fangs 1, talons 2, life protection 1, electricity
resistance, slow metabolism 1, unbreathing, petrification resistance, AC +17
a: Fly, Burn Spellbooks, Berserk, Trog's Hand, Brothers in Arms, Renounce
Religion
}: 3/15 runes: serpentine, barnacled, silver


You were on level 23 of the Dungeon.
You worshipped Trog.
Trog was extremely pleased with you.
You were not hungry.

You visited 6 branches of the dungeon, and saw 50 of its levels.
You also visited: Labyrinth.

You collected 5347 gold pieces.
You spent 2737 gold pieces at shops.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 c - the +4,+11 scimitar of Afoluzet {slice, +Blink +Inv rC++ Str+1 Int-2}
   (Trog gifted it to you on level 5 of the Snake Pit)   
   
   It inflicts extra damage upon your enemies.
   
   It affects your strength (+1).
   It affects your intelligence (-2).
   It greatly protects you from cold.
   It lets you turn invisible.
   It lets you blink.
 L - the +3,+10 eveningstar of Greatest Utility (weapon) {venom, Dex+3 Int+2}
   (Trog gifted it to you on level 2 of the Vaults)   
   
   It poisons the flesh of those it strikes.
   
   It affects your intelligence (+2).
   It affects your dexterity (+3).
Armour
 n - a -1 cloak (worn)
 t - a +3 ice dragon armour (worn)
 z - the +6 shield of the gong (worn) {rElec rN+ MR+}
   (You bought it in a shop on level 4 of the Orcish Mines)   
   
   It insulates you from electricity.
   It protects you from negative energy.
   It affects your resistance to hostile enchantments.
 J - a +0 pair of boots (worn)
 O - the -1 helmet of Liberty (worn) {Dex+4 Int+2}
   (You found it in a labyrinth)   
   
   It affects your intelligence (+2).
   It affects your dexterity (+4).
 S - a +0 pair of gauntlets (worn)
Magical devices
 a - a wand of confusion (7)
 b - a wand of disintegration (6)
 d - a wand of hasting (2)
 f - a wand of polymorph (5)
 h - a wand of teleportation (0)
 j - a wand of confusion (18)
 w - a wand of paralysis (24)
 x - a wand of flame (8)
 A - a wand of confusion (23)
 B - a wand of lightning (11)
 D - a wand of polymorph (13)
 F - a wand of fire (10)
 G - a wand of fireball (9)
 H - a wand of enslavement (17) {unknown}
 K - a wand of slowing (17)
 R - a wand of lightning (12)
 T - a wand of polymorph (16)
 X - a wand of invisibility (2)
 Y - a wand of digging (13)
Comestibles
 q - 10 bread rations
Scrolls
 m - a scroll of teleportation
 C - 7 scrolls of identify
 N - 4 scrolls of remove curse
Jewellery
 k - an uncursed ring of regeneration
 o - a +6 ring of protection (left hand)
 P - a +6 ring of evasion (right hand)
 U - the ring "Esural" {SustAb +Blink rN+ SInv Stlth--}
   (You took it off a yaktaur captain on level 5 of the Vaults)   
   
   [ring of sustain abilities]
   It protects you from negative energy.
   It enhances your eyesight.
   It lets you blink.
   It makes you much less stealthy.
 Z - the amulet of the Gloaming (around neck) {rMut rF+ Acc+3}
   (You found it on level 13 of the Dungeon)   
   
   [amulet of resist mutation]
   It affects your accuracy (+3).
   It protects you from fire.
Potions
 e - a potion of speed
 l - 11 potions of curing
 p - 2 potions of might
 s - a potion of berserk rage
 u - a potion of agility
 v - 2 potions of brilliance
 M - a potion of heal wounds
Miscellaneous
 i - a plain deck of defence {the Blade}
 E - a plain deck of changes {the Helm}
 W - a phial of floods


   Skills:
 * Level 21.1 Fighting
 + Level 22.0 Maces & Flails
 + Level 19.0 Armour
 + Level 9.0 Dodging
 * Level 17.0 Shields
 - Level 1.2 Spellcasting
 - Level 10.4 Evocations


You had 24 spell levels left.
You didn't know any spells.

Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (23/27)            Temple (0/1) D:6             Orc (4/4) D:9
    Elf (0/3) Orc:4          Lair (8/8) D:12         Shoals (5/5) Lair:5
  Snake (5/5) Lair:5        Slime (0/6) Lair:6       Vaults (5/5) D:15
  Blade (0/1) Vaults:3      Crypt (0/5) Vaults:2   

Altars:
Elyvilon
Fedhas
Kikubaaqudgha
Sif Muna
Trog
Yredelemnul
Beogh

Shops:
Orc:4 ?(}[?%(=   Shoals:1 (   Snake:1 /   Snake:2 /   Vaults:3 /
Vaults:4 *

Portals:
Hell: D:21 D:22
Pandemonium: D:21 D:22

Annotations:
D:20 exclusion: silver statue
D:23 exclusion: orange crystal statue


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You are resistant to torment.
You are immune to poison.
You can fly continuously.
Your stone body is very resilient (AC +17).
Your wings are large and strong.
You have very sharp teeth.
You have razor-sharp toenails.
You resist negative energy.
You are resistant to electric shocks.
You have a slow metabolism.
You can survive without breathing.
You are immune to petrification.


Message History

The ettin hits you with a great mace!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
You block the ettin's attack.
PANG!
The yaktaur captain shoots a silver bolt.
The silver bolt hits you!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
You continue eating.
You block the fire giant's attack.
BONNNG!
You block the frost giant's attack.
BONNNG!
You continue eating.
The ettin looks more healthy. The stone giant completely misses you.
The ettin barely misses you. The ettin hits you but does no damage.
The fire giant hits you but does no damage.
The frost giant hits you but does no damage.
The yaktaur captain shoots a silver bolt.
The silver bolt hits you!
You die...

           ##'##       ##...
          ##...##       ##.#
         ##.....##    ####.#
 #      ##..%....##  ##.##.#
##..c####(........####...#.#
....Cc..()........'........#
##..C####)(.."(....###...#.#
 #      ##CCC....#.# ##.##.#
         ##@C...##.#  ####.#
          ##).(.##########.#
           ##c..........##.#
            #.#..#.####.##.#
            #.##.#    #.##.#
         ####.##..### #.....
         #....>.....# #.##.#
      ........<..##.# #.##.#
      ###..#...#.##.###.##.#


You could see a fire giant, a frost giant, a stone giant, a yaktaur captain and
an ettin.

Vanquished Creatures
  Boris (twice) (D:20 Vaults:5)
  Sojobo (D:22)
  Margery (D:22)
  Mennas (Vaults:5)
  Jory (D:20)
  Xtahua (Vaults:5)
  Frederick (Shoals:4)
  2 tentacled monstrosities
  2 sphinxes
  A storm dragon (Vaults:5)
  A lich (Vaults:5)
  A kraken (Shoals:5)
  Agnes (Snake:1)
  5 shadow dragons (Vaults:5)
  Roxanne (D:15)
  Ilsuiw (Shoals:5)
  9 tengu reavers
  The ghost of Awesome Antelope the Envoy of Void, a powerful CeAK of Lugonu (D:17)
  Wiglaf (Snake:5)
  3 frost giants (Vaults:4)
  Maud (Shoals:1)
  A fire giant (Vaults:3)
  Aizul (D:18)
  9 vault wardens
  Gastronok (Orc:2)
  Jorgrun (Vaults:5)
  4 greater nagas (Snake:5)
  29 stone giants
  A deep elf demonologist (Vaults:4)
  8 merfolk javelineers
  Snorg (D:19)
  30 vault guards
  4 dragons
  6 merfolk impalers
  A minotaur (Lab)
  6 ettins
  21 yaktaur captains
  7 sirens
  The ghost of Clocktopus the Martial Artist, a powerful OpMo of Cheibriados (D:14)
  A great orb of eyes (D:18)
  Fannar (Lair:2)
  10 ironheart preservers
  3 merfolk aquamancers (Shoals:5)
  Harold (Lair:1)
  An ice dragon (shapeshifter) (D:22)
  13 hydras
  Nessos (D:14)
  A hydra (shapeshifter) (Vaults:5)
  Erica (D:16)
  5 ogre magi
  2 alligator snapping turtles
  12 anacondas
  3 deep troll earth magi
  4 death yaks
  4 deep troll shamans
  5 orc high priests
  10 naga warriors
  2 very ugly things (D:18)
  A soul eater (Vaults:2)
  21 centaur warriors
  A storm dragon zombie (D:22)
  2 iron golems
  Nergalle (Lair:1)
  6 spectral orcs (Lair:1)
  4 fire crabs
  2 iron trolls
  4 hell knights (D:22)
  2 ice devils
  2 unseen horrors
  A catoblepas (Lair:8)
  A flayed ghost (Vaults:2)
  11 skeletal warriors
  14 sea snakes
  4 deep trolls
  9 hill giants
  A giant orange brain (shapeshifter) (Vaults:5)
  A storm dragon skeleton (D:22)
  8 ironbrand convokers
  18 harpies
  Erolcha (D:9)
  A sphinx zombie (D:20)
  5 large abominations (D:16)
  19 orc knights
  2 tengu zombies (Vaults:5)
  Joseph (Lair:1)
  A necromancer (Vaults:5)
  3 wizards
  4 wolf spiders
  4 red wasps
  3 frost giant zombies
  5 fire giant zombies
  6 stone giant zombies
  4 orc sorcerers
  9 giant amoebae
  A phantasmal warrior (Vaults:4)
  2 elephants (Lair:8)
  12 cyclopes
  13 griffons
  4 frost giant skeletons
  Maurice (D:10)
  2 fire giant skeletons
  4 vault sentinels
  38 black mambas
  13 spiny frogs
  A spiny worm (D:22)
  8 stone giant skeletons
  2 eyes of devastation
  A storm dragon simulacrum (Vaults:3)
  An orange demon (D:18)
  Psyche (D:11)
  A feature mimic (D:10)
  17 naga magi
  2 smoke demons
  32 yaktaurs
  A mermaid (shapeshifter) (D:19)
  9 trolls
  A hellwing (Orc:4)
  11 mermaids
  2 iron troll zombies (D:21)
  9 komodo dragons
  12 fire drakes
  2 fire drakes (shapeshifter)
  A giant firefly (shapeshifter) (D:18)
  A deep elf priest (Vaults:4)
  2 iron troll skeletons
  A komodo dragon (shapeshifter) (Vaults:1)
  A spriggan (D:8)
  3 human zombies (Vaults:5)
  Prince Ribbit (D:5)
  13 two-headed ogres
  13 blink frogs
  14 snapping turtles
  A harpy skeleton (D:17)
  34 slime creatures
  An ettin zombie (Vaults:5)
  8 boulder beetles
  A dragon zombie (D:12)
  A hydra skeleton (D:14)
  91 ugly things
  2 ynoxinuls (Orc:4)
  A trapdoor spider (D:11)
  A trapdoor spider (shapeshifter) (Vaults:4)
  A redback (D:23)
  8 basilisks
  3 ettin skeletons
  A griffon skeleton (D:19)
  2 vampires
  An ice dragon skeleton (D:18)
  4 shadows
  A dragon skeleton (D:14)
  2 wraiths
  3 wyverns
  An elephant slug (Lair:8)
  24 hippogriffs
  9 hill giant zombies
  A chaos spawn (Orc:4)
  30 vampire mosquitoes
  A clay golem (D:15)
  16 sharks
  42 yaks
  A hill giant skeleton (D:11)
  A hog (shapeshifter) (Vaults:2)
  42 merfolk
  7 deep elf fighters
  2 mottled dragons
  4 hungry ghosts
  2 fire elementals
  11 wolves
  Edmund (D:9)
  A neqoxec (D:18)
  2 deep troll zombies
  2 hell hounds (D:14)
  40 orc warriors
  21 manticores
  A rock worm (Vaults:2)
  2 freezing wraiths
  A soldier ant (shapeshifter) (Vaults:1)
  A deep troll skeleton (Vaults:2)
  5 porcupines
  5 ice beasts
  4 sky beasts
  A deep dwarf (shapeshifter) (Vaults:5)
  A necrophage (D:12)
  7 small abominations (D:16)
  3 black bears
  60 nagas
  20 ogres
  A snapping turtle zombie (Shoals:1)
  3 phantoms
  A centaur (shapeshifter) (Vaults:5)
  2 ice beasts (shapeshifter)
  19 crocodiles
  A big kobold (shapeshifter) (D:18)
  An ettin simulacrum (Vaults:2)
  5 wargs
  4 yaktaur zombies
  36 centaurs
  18 giant slugs
  A boring beetle (Lair:8)
  39 water moccasins
  3 big kobolds
  A giant slug zombie (Vaults:1)
  4 brain worms (D:18)
  Blork the orc (D:5)
  2 cyclops zombies
  A manticore zombie (D:11)
  A deep troll simulacrum (D:22)
  19 giant frogs
  12 agate snails
  A yaktaur skeleton (D:15)
  A cyclops skeleton (D:16)
  A merfolk simulacrum (Shoals:1)
  A yak zombie (D:7)
  A troll zombie (D:9)
  5 jellyfish
  7 killer bees
  3 boulder beetle zombies
  A jelly (shapeshifter) (Vaults:5)
  23 wights
  4 electric eels (Lair:6)
  2 yak skeletons
  A troll skeleton (D:13)
  7 crimson imps
  A pulsating lump (shapeshifter) (Vaults:5)
  A pulsating lump (Vaults:4)
  A vampire bat (Orc:3)
  6 goliath beetles
  2 giant frog zombies
  A centaur zombie (D:9)
  A black bear zombie (D:8)
  10 jellies
  2 gnoll shamans
  9 iguanas
  A quasit (D:13)
  8 hounds
  28 orc wizards
  39 orc priests
  13 big fish
  8 worker ants
  5 scorpions
  34 sheep
  A killer bee zombie (D:13)
  3 ogre zombies
  An ogre skeleton (D:11)
  2 mummies
  39 green rats
  50 adders
  3 giant centipedes
  A worm zombie (D:7)
  A lemure (D:20)
  A shadow imp (D:18)
  9 gnolls
  An inept feature mimic (D:8)
  5 giant mites
  A worm (shapeshifter) (Vaults:5)
  4 worms
  13 ufetubi (Orc:4)
  A scorpion zombie (D:10)
  An adder zombie (D:6)
  2 adder skeletons
  3 giant eyeballs
  12 oozes (Lair:1)
  172 orcs
  5 ball pythons
  4 giant cockroaches
  12 goblins
  19 hobgoblins
  38 bats
  6 giant geckos
  A giant gecko skeleton (D:6)
  5 giant newts
  3 goblin skeletons (D:9)
  A goblin zombie (D:5)
  3 hobgoblin skeletons
  4 hobgoblin zombies
  23 jackals
  A jackal skeleton (D:4)
  32 kobolds
  A kobold skeleton (D:6)
  4 orc skeletons (D:9)
  19 orc zombies
  12 quokkas
  24 rats
  2 rat skeletons
  A ballistomycete (D:10)
  A plant (Lair:6)
2174 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (collateral kills)
  Saint Roka (Orc:4)
  Mara (Vaults:3)
  Nikola (Shoals:4)
  A tentacled monstrosity (Vaults:5)
  Polyphemus (Shoals:4)
  A frost giant (Vaults:3)
  Louise (D:14)
  A stone giant (D:22)
  A greater naga (Snake:5)
  Azrael (D:14)
  2 merfolk impalers (Shoals:5)
  An ironheart preserver (Vaults:2)
  A merfolk aquamancer (Shoals:5)
  3 yaktaur captains
  An ogre mage (Vaults:1)
  Josephine (Shoals:1)
  A hydra (Lair:8)
  An anaconda (Snake:4)
  2 death yaks (Lair:8)
  8 centaur warriors
  A sun demon (Orc:4)
  2 naga warriors (Snake:5)
  A catoblepas (Shoals:4)
  An orc high priest (Orc:4)
  3 skeletal warriors (D:14)
  A griffon (Vaults:2)
  3 orc knights
  2 cyclopes
  A stone giant zombie (Vaults:2)
  7 black mambas
  A wolf spider (D:20)
  A vault sentinel (Vaults:1)
  A smoke demon (Vaults:4)
  8 yaktaurs
  A mermaid (Shoals:5)
  A naga mage (Snake:5)
  A two-headed ogre (Vaults:1)
  3 slime creatures (Vaults:1)
  A stone giant simulacrum (Vaults:2)
  4 snapping turtles
  3 ugly things (Vaults:4)
  A deep elf mage (Vaults:4)
  8 vampire mosquitoes
  A hill giant skeleton (D:14)
  2 deep elf fighters
  2 hippogriffs
  7 merfolk (Shoals:5)
  3 manticores (Shoals:5)
  A deep troll zombie (Vaults:1)
  3 hell hounds (D:14)
  7 orc warriors (Orc:4)
  3 nagas (Snake:5)
  A merfolk zombie (Shoals:1)
  8 centaurs
  A merfolk skeleton (Shoals:1)
  3 ogres
  2 yaktaur zombies (D:20)
  2 vampire mosquito zombies (D:20)
  2 manticore zombies (Shoals:1)
  A water moccasin (Snake:5)
  A merfolk simulacrum (Shoals:1)
  A mermaid simulacrum (Shoals:1)
  An orc priest (Orc:4)
  2 orc wizards (Orc:4)
  A killer bee zombie (D:14)
  2 adders (Snake:4)
  13 orcs (Orc:4)
  4 ball pythons (Snake:4)
161 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (others)
  A tengu reaver (Vaults:5)
  A vault warden (Vaults:5)
  A yaktaur captain (Vaults:5)
  An unseen horror (D:11)
  2 iron trolls
  2 flayed ghosts
  3 deep trolls
  A hill giant (D:14)
  A necromancer (Vaults:5)
  A phantasmal warrior (Vaults:5)
  2 human zombies (Vaults:5)
  4 trolls
  A grizzly bear (Vaults:5)
  5 two-headed ogres
  2 orc warriors
  A vampire mosquito (Vaults:1)
  12 ogres
  A centaur (Vaults:1)
  A hound (shapeshifter) (Vaults:5)
  An orc (D:21)
  2 giant spores
  4 fungi
  A plant (Shoals:4)
  5 tentacles (Shoals:5)
  55 tentacle segments (Shoals:5)
111 creatures vanquished.

Grand Total: 2446 creatures vanquished

Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1      | Garg, the Gargoyle Berserker, began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1      | Reached XP level 1. HP: 14/14 MP: 0/0
   109 | D:1      | Reached XP level 2. HP: 14/19 MP: 1/1
   279 | D:1      | Reached skill level 4 in Maces & Flails
   500 | D:1      | Reached XP level 3. HP: 24/24 MP: 2/2
   738 | D:2      | Found a white marble altar of Elyvilon.
   884 | D:2      | Acquired Trog's second power
  1205 | D:2      | Reached XP level 4. HP: 23/28 MP: 3/3
  1720 | D:3      | Reached skill level 5 in Maces & Flails
  1755 | D:3      | Reached XP level 5. HP: 21/33 MP: 4/4
  2605 | D:4      | Noticed an ogre
  2611 | D:4      | Killed an ogre
  2611 | D:4      | Reached skill level 6 in Maces & Flails
  2611 | D:4      | Reached XP level 6. HP: 39/39 MP: 5/5
  2680 | D:4      | Acquired Trog's third power
  3333 | D:5      | Entered Level 5 of the Dungeon
  3372 | D:5      | Noticed Prince Ribbit
  3778 | D:5      | Reached skill level 5 in Fighting
  3791 | D:5      | Reached XP level 7. HP: 40/44 MP: 6/6
  3856 | D:5      | Killed Prince Ribbit
  3856 | D:5      | Reached skill level 7 in Maces & Flails
  4207 | D:5      | Noticed Blork the orc
  4220 | D:5      | Killed Blork the orc
  5200 | D:6      | Reached XP level 8. HP: 49/49 MP: 7/7
  5209 | D:6      | Reached skill level 5 in Armour
  5214 | D:6      | Reached skill level 8 in Maces & Flails
  5818 | D:6      | Found a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple.
  6114 | D:7      | Reached skill level 9 in Maces & Flails
  6790 | D:7      | Reached XP level 9. HP: 55/55 MP: 8/8
  7416 | D:8      | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 2 turns
  7451 | D:8      | Reached skill level 10 in Maces & Flails
  7819 | D:8      | Found a bloodstained altar of Trog.
  8016 | D:8      | Reached skill level 11 in Maces & Flails
  8419 | D:8      | Noticed a spriggan baker
  8428 | D:8      | Killed a spriggan baker
  8428 | D:8      | Reached XP level 10. HP: 58/62 MP: 9/9
  8616 | D:9      | Found a blossoming altar of Fedhas.
  8678 | D:10     | Entered Level 10 of the Dungeon
  8707 | D:9      | Found a staircase to the Orcish Mines.
  8770 | D:9      | Reached skill level 1 in Evocations
  8827 | D:9      | Reached skill level 12 in Maces & Flails
  9008 | D:9      | Received a gift from Trog
  9034 | D:9      | Noticed Erolcha
  9044 | D:9      | Killed Erolcha
  9428 | D:9      | Noticed Edmund
  9444 | D:9      | Killed Edmund
  9676 | D:10     | Reached XP level 11. HP: 68/68 MP: 15/15
  9834 | D:10     | Noticed Maurice
  9881 | D:10     | Killed Maurice
  9881 | D:10     | Reached skill level 13 in Maces & Flails
 10157 | D:10     | Noticed a hill giant
 10168 | D:10     | Killed a hill giant
 10807 | D:10     | Reached skill level 10 in Fighting
 10845 | D:11     | Received a gift from Trog
 10990 | D:11     | Noticed an eight-headed hydra
 10996 | D:11     | Killed an eight-headed hydra
 11191 | D:11     | Noticed an unseen horror
 11191 | D:11     | Noticed a centaur warrior
 11208 | D:11     | Killed an unseen horror
 11257 | D:11     | Killed a centaur warrior
 11257 | D:11     | Reached skill level 14 in Maces & Flails
 11257 | D:11     | Reached skill level 10 in Armour
 11560 | D:11     | Reached XP level 12. HP: 70/76 MP: 17/17
 11614 | D:11     | Noticed Psyche
 11628 | D:11     | Killed Psyche
 11841 | D:11     | Noticed an unseen horror
 11855 | D:11     | Killed an unseen horror
 11866 | D:11     | Noticed a five-headed hydra
 11880 | D:11     | Killed a five-headed hydra
 11910 | D:11     | Noticed a hill giant
 11917 | D:11     | Killed a hill giant
 11917 | D:11     | Received a gift from Trog
 11981 | D:11     | Identified a scroll of acquirement
 11984 | D:11     | Got a faintly glowing helmet
 11988 | D:11     | Identified the +1 helmet of Hairiness {rPois} (You acquired it on level 11 of the Dungeon)
 11989 | D:11     | Identified a +2 rod of the swarm (12/12) (You found it on level 8 of the Dungeon)
 12283 | D:12     | Noticed a six-headed hydra
 12293 | D:12     | Killed a six-headed hydra
 12490 | D:12     | Reached skill level 15 in Maces & Flails
 12696 | D:12     | Found a labyrinth entrance.
 12768 | Lab      | Entered a labyrinth
 13118 | Lab      | Noticed a minotaur
 13123 | Lab      | Killed a minotaur
 13166 | Lab      | Got a slimy silver amulet
 13225 | Lab      | Identified the amulet "Ciepuomm" {rMut Dex+3 Int+2} (You found it in a labyrinth)
 13230 | Lab      | Got an encrusted hand axe
 13230 | Lab      | Got a steaming helmet
 13232 | Lab      | Identified a +2 rod of warding (9/9) (You found it in a labyrinth)
&n