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Let's Play Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Kz3r0

Arcane
Joined
May 28, 2008
Messages
27,013
For a new character I suggest Necradamus, vampire assassin.
And someone could please point me towards where I can find a list of the commands?
Skimming through the manual is a pain.
 

7hm

Scholar
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
644
Yeah the in-game manual is really strong.

There really isn't a good replacement for it in terms of in-game commands or features.

Maybe open it up as a second window rather than reading it in-game, which can be a bit annoying? It'll be in crawl / doc / crawl_manual.txt

Thank you, good sir, for unveiling a roguelike that does not rape newcomers.

Many hours will go into this one (although I suck)

Glad you like it. This game is fantastic - more people should play it. With the tiles version it's as newbie-friendly as you're going to get out of a *quality* roguelike.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,982
I like the macro system they have too. It's easier to set up and change than it is in most roguelikes. I generally set +-*/ to my 4 most often used commands in the game; usually a spell targeted at the nearest enemy, another spell that I either target manually or cast on myself, auto-travel and prayer. Makes things go a lot quicker.
 

Luigi

Barely Literate
Joined
Jan 21, 2011
Messages
428
Macros rule.
I use it for the same thing - necromancer spells shortkeys.
 

Haba

Harbinger of Decline
Patron
Joined
Dec 24, 2008
Messages
1,871,744
Location
Land of Rape & Honey ❤️
Codex 2012 MCA Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2
God damnit, Demonspawn of Trog gets so boring at endgame. And the fact that even plate mail is like paper doesn't really help much. I am seriously considering quitting this char and starting a new one.
 

7hm

Scholar
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
644
Haba said:
God damnit, Demonspawn of Trog gets so boring at endgame. And the fact that even plate mail is like paper doesn't really help much. I am seriously considering quitting this char and starting a new one.

Don't quit. Do something crazy if you're getting there. Go drink mutation potions and kill ugly red things or whatever and munch on them until you're either a warped monstrosity with Tourette's Syndrome or you develop the ability to teleport at will and control said teleportation.

Where are you at in the game?
 

7hm

Scholar
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
644
Lord Paco - The Cowardly Wizard

The Dungeon Crawling Goodness of Lord Paco the Demigod Wizard

Part One - The Cowardly Wizard

... in which we are introduced to Lord Paco and watch him stumble through the starting levels.

bl_LordPacoEarly.png


Meet Lord Paco.

bl_01.png

bl_02.png


Lord Paco is a Demigod Wizard who chose to start with the Book of Flame.

bl_03.png


Lord Paco's starting gear - and a knife he found a few steps from the dungeon entrance. Lord Paco briefly considered bringing a better weapon to the dungeon with him, but he decided that it would be unfair to the denizens for him to have such an advantage.

Before Lord Paco's adventures really begin - let's just go over the build I've chosen for this run.

Demigods are:
...more or less like members of their mortal part's race, but they have excellent attributes and are extremely robust. They can also draw on great supplies of magic points but they advance very slowly in experience, they gain skills slightly less quickly than Humans, and due to their nature cannot worship the various gods and powers available to other races.
Wizards are:
...magicians who do not specialize in any area of magic, making them a jack of all trades, master of none when compared to more focused spellcasters. Wizards enter the Dungeon with the Magic Dart spell in memory. They are one of the best spellcaster backgrounds, making up for the lack of initial firepower with high spellcasting and some great early utility spells.
Demigod anythings are not easy, though Wizards are a decent combination for them. The lack of a god is actually a fairly significant hurdle, and the Demigod early game can be a bit tough because of how slowly you level up (I find at least). They're also bad at learning pretty much everything, so skill development is a bit of a grind. On the other hand, the extra HP and MP and the high stats can make for strong characters in the middle and later stages of the game.

Back to Lord Paco.

bl_04.png

bl_05.png


Lord Paco meets and destroys a surprisingly dangerous early opponent. While strong melee based characters can just run though DL:1 / DL:2 bashing on monsters and not worrying all that much until the first spellcasters appear around DL:3 / DL:4, Lord Paco finds himself having to run from a lot of battles early. When he does engage, he has to make sure he softens his enemy up as much as possible, and dance around rocks to allow himself time for his MP to regenerate.

bl_06.png


Perfect example. There is no way Lord Paco is going to engage with a snake on level one. Time to run.

bl_07.png


Lord Paco clears most of DL:1 and is working his way through DL:2 when he finds himself in a very tough spot. He was fighting the kobold when the snake appeared. With fairly limited offensive magic he's been depending on his Summon Small Mammals spell to keep the snake at bay, but Lord Paco's little rat summons aren't able to hurt the snake, only buy Lord Paco some time to decide on his next course of action.

He spots the stairs and runs for the exit.

If in doubt, dive. You can always come back later.

bl_08.png


Down in DL:3 Lord Paco grinded his way up to level three, but when he returned to DL:2 the snake was still there. This time he's stronger though, and he manages to kill the snake with magic darts.

bl_09.png


On DL:4 Lord Paco meets Edmund. Edmind has a big flail.

A quick summon gives Lord Paco some room to breathe, and he runs as fast as his somewhat godly legs can carry him. Edmund will mince Lord Paco in melee right now, and Lord Paco still doesn't have any strong offensive spells.

bl_10.png


Now on DL:5 after having run from Edmind, Lord Paco levels up. He is now level 4.

bl_11.png


Still on DL:5, Lord Paco sees some slaves. That means Pikel can't be far. There's no incentive to killing the slaves and they're surprisingly tough in close, so Lord Paco books it from this encounter as well.

When you're a wizard, you seem to run more than you fight, but live to fight another day and all that.

bl_12.png

bl_13.png


Lord Paco finds the entrance to the temple on DL:5. Being a Demigod means that the Temple will really only be a storage location for Lord Paco - he can't choose to worship any of the gods of course.

bl_14.png


Lord Paco meets Ijyb.
Ijyb is a unique goblin who sometimes spawns with a wand. If he does have a wand he can be a dangerous opponent. If he doesn't have a wand though, he's often an easy kill.
bl_15.png

bl_16.png


Lord Paco still has to be careful, but he takes care of Ijyb without any issues. Mephitic Cloud is going to be a very common spell for the forseeable future. Fighting enemies who are confused is always the best way to go.

bl_17.png


Lord Paco sees Blork the Orc.

bl_18.png


Lord Paco kills Blork the Orc.

bl_19.png


Lord Paco, now level 6, returns to DL:4 and murders Edmund. The greatest feeling in crawl is going back to an earlier level and just demolishing something that was a huge threat earlier in the game. Progression like this is so rare outside of roguelikes what with all the level-scaling and linear monster progression we see nowadays.

bl_20.png


Lord Paco softens up a group of orcs for the easy confusion kill on DL:8.

bl_21.png


Lord Paco returns to the Temple to ID some items and when he reaches there, has to kill an Ogre. He is now level 7!

That's it for this update. Lord Paco's current inventory:

bl_22.png

bl_23.png


Of note - he has a good dagger of freezing which will be helpful in the next few levels. He also has a ring of wizardry - this is huge.

The Wizardry brand can come in ring or staff form and makes spellcasting less likely to fail. The brand stacks, so having more of these items is a good thing. Each worn ring of wizardry provides 3 levels of wizardry, and that has the effect of reducing the chance of spell failure to 74.9% of what it would otherwise be. (You can't reduce spell failure chance by more than 50%.)

bl_24.png


The skillset Lord Paco has developed.

As you can see, I leave spellcasting on and turn off the related skills to maximize spell power and minimize hunger cost. I've left air and poison magic on for the moment to ensure Lord Paco's failure rate with Mephitic Cloud lowers as quickly as possible.

I leave dodging and stealth on with pretty well all my characters - they're lifesavers.

Next Update: Lord Paco dives down the dungeon.

...

A final thought to leave you all on.

This game is brutally hard, but fundamentally fair. If you die, it is always your own fault.

See: a win streak that's currently happening on the cao server
Code:
7	9	mikee	2011-01-19 06:00:58	2011-02-05 06:46:05	MfPa, DrSu, NaTm, DGRe, TrAM, CePa, KoBe, DDCK, MiMo

I'm happy when I clear the Lair and ecstatic when I see a rune, let alone pick it up. Mikee has streaked 9 wins in a row, with some vastly different playstyles, and is still going strong. This shit blows my mind. (The guy has a 45% win rate online and has won 25 games since Nov 27th. Jesus christ.)

And a final note: as I mentioned earlier in the thread, I did run through Lord Paco twice, this being the second attempt. I'll give all builds two chances - either I succeed in reaching Temple / Lair the first time, in which case that's their only shot, or I don't and I use the larger of their two games for the actual LP. As a result of this though you may see some ghosts later on that don't make sense based on where the LP goes. Those are the ghosts of the failed characters.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 14, 2009
Messages
10,266
Location
Poland
I strongly disagree, crawl often is very random and nothing can change that. I died to the first goblin with my mellee characters before. I died to branded weapons on kobolds on DL1. I met 3 gnolls in the second room on level one. True, later you get more options and opportunities to escape, but early game is random.
 

Elwro

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2002
Messages
11,746
Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
That's what I thought about ADOM, too, before I became proficient at it so that I can always take any character up to Dwarven Halls. And many people say ADOM's early game is unfair and random, while this simply isn't true. I also feel like Crawl is giving me a hard time, but if experienced players say it isn't random, I'd wager it really isn't.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,982
Yep, sometimes you just step around a corner to find a room filled with wakeful pissed off priests and wizards. And at low levels, all it takes is one good damage roll to finish you. Never mind all the situations where you can be chased by something faster than you until you die, or an invisible unique has a wand of paralysis.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,982
That's what I thought about ADOM, too, before I became proficient at it so that I can always take any character up to Dwarven Halls. And many people say ADOM's early game is unfair and random, while this simply isn't true. I also feel like Crawl is giving me a hard time, but if experienced players say it isn't random, I'd wager it really isn't.
I'd believe it if I could actually see some replays of good players running into things like what I described and getting out of it by skill. The only ascensions I ever see recorded are filled with a lot of luck. (Or in ADOM's case, scumming the ID until you have more wands and spellbooks and jewlery than you'll find in the rest of the game is apparently not cheesy. It's only cheesy when you actually make the wish engine, not looting everything you'd have used said engine for.)
 

abstract

Scholar
Joined
Sep 20, 2006
Messages
444
Yeah, the Crawl RNG likes to fuck your shit up for no reason. Today for example I ran into an orc warrior on D:2 with a melee char. I escaped down the stairs only to be killed by a bunch of jellies. I won't even mention things like getting one-shotted by an orc priest from across the screen or running into a centaur with branded bow or arrows. Compare it to ADOM, where you can pretty regularly get a normal ending with any race/class combination if you don't do anything stupid along the way.
 

Qwertilot

Novice
Joined
Feb 8, 2011
Messages
36
I have to say that the (apparent?) near total lack of detection/teleportation/ escape magic in this seems slightly terrifying for an (z)angband veteran. Really very rare to have a good excuse for dying in those.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,982
Detection magic is indeed painfully rare (Unless you're a diviner I suppose, but who the hell would pick that? they removed divination magic from player spells in .6 apparently :retarded: ) but movement magic isn't that hard to come by. Nemelex can pump out decks of escape if you feed him armor, and scrolls of teleport and blinking are among the more common types. Rings of teleportation aren't terribly rare either. And you can always be a Warper and start with the appropriate spellbook. Wands of teleport are fairly scarce, but if you find one, you'll probably have a scroll or two of recharging to use on it.

The main issue is how innaccurate and slow teleportation is, and how short ranged blinking is. Teleport scrolls don't really save your ass if you're about to be dead in 1-2 turns. And blink scrolls are only situationally useful, like if you can use it to get to some stairs or a loopy corridor to lose the monsters in.

That said, monsters are easier to escape from in Crawl by conventional means; they stop following you pretty quickly once you're out of sight, and eventually even go back to sleep. Lots of them are slow, and each floor has around 9 or so stairways you can run up/down. It's also easy to get your hands on slowing or confusion magic, or haste or invisibility. It's a far cry from angband, where some asshole monster can block the stairs and you're suddenly trapped on the same floor as some completely out of depth monster.
 

Zomg

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 21, 2005
Messages
6,984
If you are anal about not using autoexplore (so you don't do stuff like walk into blind spots where an ogre will suddenly be adjacent to you, etc), use consumables on things that can kill newbie characters a fair amount of the time (e.g. snakes, orc wizards) and checking for enemies with possibly-branded weapons on DL1-5 or so I think a perfect player could probably reach the temple 90% of the time with power race/class combos and like 60-80% with non-gimp combos, and from there with zero error, sound strategic play a very good player should win the vast majority of the time. It's just a crazy feat of concentration and useful habit to get those 50%+ win rates over scores of games the psycho players like mikee and elliptic get.

I strongly prefer having a good 10-20% chance of getting a complete "fuck there's nothing I could have done" or clusterfuck death to the Nethack way of knowing I can ascend every character if I just slavishly pay attention, or the Angband/ADOM way of only ever dying when you can't stand scumming any more.
 

7hm

Scholar
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
644
meh. I think the vast majority of the "I'm fucked nothing I could do" deaths are due to your own error. Little things like not using auto-explore, being far more careful with the monsters you engage, etc as zomg mentions make a huge difference early, but most of us can't play like that all the time.

On the current character (best one yet btw... I've cleared elf 1-3 and am working through the vaults atm looking for some poison resistance to head into swamp) I've stepped down staircases into deadly situations at least 10 times, but ... I don't go down stairs without full HP 90% of the time, I've invested in stealth to a small extent and having even one monster asleep when you go down the stairs can be the difference between life and death, I have a couple scrolls of blinking and the spell (controlled) for those emergency situations, I don't push my luck (much...) - if I see a deadly situation, I run right back up the stairs and my escape move is my second turn. If I was going to die moving up the stairs I was probably dead anyway, so I'll take the risk there.

Anyway I'm working on the next update. I'm gonna try to catch up to my current guy while he's still alive. I may skip one of characters who wasn't so successful and just do a short update for him later.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
14,982
On the other hand though, going down to the last level of the orc mines, while INVISIBLE, on a Spriggan with 12 stealth and a fucking elven cloak, I was still in a room with fully awake monsters, including casters. Why? Warg within view of the stairs. Bark. No more stealth.

What are your options at that point? I was powerful enough that the chances of being screwed were low, but if there had just been a unique there along with the warg, I could have easily been toast. Monsters get a free round before you get up the stairs, and unless you're immune to confusion, banishment, and paralysis that one free round is all they need to get another 10 turns and kill you.

At the other end of the progression scale, sometimes you just get screwed for items by the RNG. If you don't get any healing potions early on, your options when facing snakes are to die of poison or die of quaffing random potions or reading random scrolls. Never mind elven conjurers trying to kill enemies and pissing away all their mp for 1 damage a point before a lowly bat finishes you off.

And lets not forget the totally awesome occurrence of having a monster walk out of a secret passage in a wall and start hucking spells at you.

All that said, I agree it's more fun this way than something where you just need to painstakingly grind to avoid certain death. I can't stomach ToME anymore because of the need for anally searching every tile for traps and artifacts you can't afford to miss, and those horrid fucking god quests. My Nethack games tend to end shortly after cleaning out the mines when I realize I really ought to sit around and farm piety for some artifacts, but not before scumming every fountain, smoky potion and light shop for possible wishes and attempting to identify everything I've run over so far. ADOM drops me as soon as I pacify the big room and get about 1/4 of the way done with my herb farming.

Crawl inevitably makes me leave in a berserk frenzy over whatever star misalignment killed me (Last time it was a centaur shooting through deflect missiles at an obscenely evasive spriggan), but before then it's lots of fun.
 

7hm

Scholar
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
644
Lord Paco - Dungeon Clearing

The Dungeon Crawling Goodness of Lord Paco the Demigod Wizard

Part Two - Dungeon Clearing

... in which Lord Paco clears out dungeon levels and makes his way to the Lair.


bl_25.png


We rejoin Lord Paco in an incredibly dangerous situation.

You see him here on DL:8. He was exploring when he got attacked by an Orc Wizard. Lord Paco was worried about his ability to kill the damn spellcaster, so he thought it would be a good idea to use-ID his wands on the wizard. This was not (is never) in fact a good idea.

The monster you see above is a Boggart. They are incredibly dangerous little fuckers.
Boggarts are very weak by themselves, with very low HP and MR, but they can summon. In one turn you can go from fighting a nothing monster to having to fight 8 yaktaurs at once. They can also turn themselves invisible, and can summon other boggarts (who in turn can summon other boggarts...).
Ironically, the one monster you are highly recommended to use polymorph other on is in fact the boggart.

I didn't know this at the time though. I looked it up later. Now I'm a bit more proactive when I see monsters I don't recognise.
bl_26.png


In any case, Lord Paco wins this round and the boggart is finished.

Lord Paco decides that he should clear out the earlier levels he dove through, so that's his next goal.

He gets up to level 8 while on DL:7, and then on DL:6 he finds this:

bl_27.png


I'm always cautious when I see areas of the map like this - you never know when a room full of monsters will be unleashed by opening the door.

bl_28.png


Luckily it's just an alter to Zin. Zin apparently enjoys trapping Angels. Bizarre hobby for a supposed "good" god.

bl_29.png

bl_30.png


Lord Paco meets Pikel back on DL:5. Pikel is not quite the fearsome opponent he once was, and Lord Paco easily handles him. Mephitic Cloud followed up by Throw Flame is a fairly deadly combination at this point, with Lord Paco's freezing dagger chipping in to conserve MP.

bl_31.png

bl_32.png


Lord Paco finds a food shop and any concerns he may have had about running out of food are pretty well done now. Not that it was a particularly large concern anyway.

bl_33.png


The dungeon is cleared so Lord Paco goes exploring for the Lair entrance. He hasn't found Lair, but he does find the entrance to the Mines on DL:10. He'll skip that for now though.

bl_34.png


Oh no! Lord Paco steps down the stairs into a group of monsters. I'm actually only posting this because of the earlier conversations. I always screenshot these (when I remember to) but I don't usually post them, because the odds are they aren't all that interesting. Normally I just run back up the stairs immediately. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, that's pretty much always a good move - if you were going to die in one turn anyway due to bad luck, then it was fated. Being upstairs, assuming you know what is there and weren't just running, will almost always be better for an escape plan.

bl_35.png


Lord Paco meets Harold. He's pretty boring, but no reason to risk getting snagged in a net. Lord Paco moves on without Harold noticing.

bl_36.png

bl_37.png


Lord Paco kills an orc wizard and achieves level 10!

That's better than Grog and Lord Paco is well on his way to duplicating Mr. Hawking's achievements!

bl_38.png


On DL:11 Lord Paco meets Joseph. Lord Paco is a coward, and he's not stupid. He runs.

bl_39.png


On DL:9 Lord Paco meets a troll. He's a coward, but even cowards have their moments. The Troll falls to a wand of disintrigration and some well timed magic.

bl_40.png


Lord Paco spots Grum. Grum isn't much of a threat at this point, especially with his war dogs already dead.

bl_41.png

bl_42.png


The hardest part about killing Grum? Having to kill an Ogre halfway through. Lord Paco makes mincemeat of them.

bl_43.png


Lord Paco use-IDs a potion of mutation and it ends up giving him more Int. Awesome!

bl_44.png


On DL:12 Lord Paco runs into a large group of orcs.

bl_45.png


Or rather, they ran into him.

Ooo! A shop.

bl_46.png


Lord Paco considers the vampiric long sword but can't afford it anyway. Another adventurer must have already got all the cool stuff from the shops.

bl_47.png


Lord Paco finds the Lair! (I didn't take a picture for some reason. Not sure why.)

That human was originally a water mocassin. Lord Paco is having major problems dealing with the snakes, so his trip to the Lair is short. He decides to grind the dungeon for a bit to level up.

That's actually where we'll leave Lord Paco for now.

Next up: Things don't exactly go as planned... and Lord Paco does a great job flying by the seat of his pants!
 

Zomg

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 21, 2005
Messages
6,984
DamnedRegistrations said:
What are your options at that point?

Fear scroll is my stairfucked solution. If there is another staircase up besides the one my character is standing on within a few steps I take that one back up, so I know the third staircase down from the previous level won't lead me right back into the stairfuck. If the level has all three staircases up at the same spot I try to find some alternative to going back up the stairs after, but that's not too common.
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 14, 2009
Messages
10,266
Location
Poland
As I already wrote I had a game that went like this: start->meet a kobold->get stabbed by a short sword of electrocution and electrocuted->dead. Not much I could do really, unless there is a way to identify monsters having branded weapons...

Fear scrolls are very rare Zomg, usually 2-3 in the entire dungeon. Even blink scrolls are more common.

The best for survival is definitely Nemelex and his decks of escape. Nothing beats the Tomb, it defeats gods wrath and even abyss...
 

Ashery

Prophet
Joined
May 24, 2008
Messages
1,337
Zomg said:
If the level has all three staircases up at the same spot I try to find some alternative to going back up the stairs after, but that's not too common.

Like this?

DCSS.jpg


:smug:
 

7hm

Scholar
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
644
Ashery said:
Zomg said:
If the level has all three staircases up at the same spot I try to find some alternative to going back up the stairs after, but that's not too common.

Like this?

DCSS.jpg


:smug:

I had that same dungeon layout in my current game. Fucking brutal layout.

That's the trick though right - you have to just leave it and figure something else to do in the meantime while you get good enough to deal with it.

start->meet a kobold->get stabbed by a short sword of electrocution and electrocuted->dead. Not much I could do really, unless there is a way to identify monsters having branded weapons...

I'll definitely grant that those deaths happen. They're pretty rare though. Not too often do you have electric branded weapons show up so early, and when they do you often don't get killed by them.

Also.. anything I should know about doing Shoals? Current guy is an FE with resistance to poison, magic, fire, elec, and an amulet of clarity. I've gone down to about DL:24, cleared swamp and knocked out the early elf levels. I've also made my way down the vault, but the stone giants are just too deadly right now. I need to find something else while I wait for my guy to get better (and maybe victory dance deflect missiles).
 

Malakal

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 14, 2009
Messages
10,266
Location
Poland
Shoals are fucking hard. A lot of water and enemies using confusion/mesmerization. On the lowest level is a rune, some shitty treasures (definitely not vault quality) and very hard enemies using even more water.

Get in if you fly or can swim, otherwise avoid.

Back to the YASD topic: I also died many times to enemies with wands on DL2...
 

Yeesh

Magister
Joined
Nov 10, 2006
Messages
2,876
Location
your future if you're not careful...
I die a lot on the first few levels, since I'd rather speed through 3 or 4 times to see which character's the luckiest than play slow and smart with chars I'm not yet attached to.

Of course, I never end up playing smart anyway.
 

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