Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup questions/thread

[Damned Registrations]

Most roguelikes aren't remotely fair. I'd suggest nethack, but that only becomes fair if you're very very spoiled. Everything else I can think of has brutal unfair things.

ADOM: Berserking, levelled enemies, various 'gotcha' things you need to be spoiled on like bosses with confusion spells or the catlord that can instagib you.

ToME: Traps. Oh god the retarded fucking traps. There are traps that remove all your equipment and then scatter it around the level. There are traps that set your nutrition so low you'll probably pass out and starve to death if you don't notice for 3 turns. Those are really common even early on. Traps that screw your piety with your god you spent hours acquiring. Spellcasters can also hit you for insane unresistable damage with their 'curses' if you save, and with enough casts, you're bound to get hit 2-3 times in a turn in some parts unless you built specifically against it.

Incursion: Out of depth monsters, and saving throws. There's no way you'll get high saves/immunity to EVERYTHING so sooner or later you'll die to a disease, poison, entanglement, enchantment, stat drains, being feared, stabbed to death while you sleep, etc.

Elona: Elona can go fuck itself with it's stupid robbers and karma loss due to bad weather and making a fucking bell the boss of a dungeon.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

wand of polymorph

Well fuck, I had one of those and didn't use it.

Feh, I'm already thinking of playing again anyway. Who am I kidding? This game is like crack.

Morgue File:
Pyra the Slicer (High Elf Crusader) Turns: 11351, Time: 00:56:50

HP -1/67 AC 8 Str 16 Exp: 10/7880 (1558), need: 3759
MP 21/21 EV 18 Int 18 God: Sif Muna [......]
Gold 122 SH 0 Dex 18 Spells: 6 memorised, 4 levels left

Res.Fire : . . . See Invis. : . q - +1 sabre
Res.Cold : . . . Warding : . b - +0 elf leather armour
Life Prot.: . . . Conserve : . (no shield)
Res.Poison: . Res.Corr. : . A - +0 spiked helmet
Res.Elec. : . Clarity : . g - +1 cloak
Spirit.Shd: . u - +0 pair of gloves
Sust.Abil.: . Rnd.Telep. : . t - +0 pair of boots
Res.Mut. : . Ctrl.Telep.: . (no amulet)
Res.Rott. : . Levitation : . (no ring)
Saprovore : . . . Ctrl.Flight: . m - +2 ring of evasion

@: invisible, mighty, somewhat resistant to hostile enchantments, stealthy
A: Int +1
a: Renounce Religion


You were on level 8 of the Dungeon.
You worshipped Sif Muna.
Sif Muna was pleased with you.
You were not hungry.

You visited 3 branches of the dungeon, and saw 10 of its levels.

You collected 324 gold pieces.
You spent 222 gold pieces at shops.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
q - a +1,+1 sabre (weapon)
s - a +0,+0 spear
D - a +0,+1 orcish spear
E - a +0,+0 spear
G - a +0,+0 spear
H - a +0,+1 orcish spear
K - a +0,+1 orcish spear
O - a -1,+3 orcish falchion
Missiles
e - a poisoned +0 dart (quivered)
h - 17 steel +0 darts
v - 28 +3 darts
w - 5 +0 javelins
I - 6 poisoned +0 elven darts
Armour
b - a +0 elven leather armour (worn)
g - a +1 cloak (worn)
t - a +0 pair of boots (worn)
u - a +0 pair of gloves (worn)
A - a +0 spiked helmet (worn)
Magical devices
k - a wand of paralysis (6)
y - a wand of draining (0)
B - a wand of polymorph other (8)
Comestibles
x - 3 chunks of centaur flesh
L - a chunk of orc flesh
Scrolls
f - a scroll of magic mapping
i - a scroll of remove curse
F - 3 scrolls of detect curse
Jewellery
m - a +2 ring of evasion (left hand)
Potions
a - a potion of healing
d - 2 potions of resistance
r - a potion of magic
z - a potion of decay
N - a potion of might
Books
c - a book of War Chants
Spells Type Level
*Fire Brand Enchantment/Fire 2
*Freezing Aura Enchantment/Ice 2
Repel Missiles Enchantment/Air 2
*Berserker Rage Enchantment 3
*Regeneration Enchantment/Necromancy 3
Haste Enchantment 6

n - a book of Flames
Spells Type Level
Flame Tongue Conjuration/Fire 1
*Throw Flame Conjuration/Fire 2
Conjure Flame Conjuration/Fire 3
Sticky Flame Conjuration/Fire 4
Bolt of Fire Conjuration/Fire 6
Fireball Conjuration/Fire 6

p - a book of Envenomations
Spells Type Level
Spider Form Transmutation/Poison 3
Summon Scorpions Summoning/Poison 4
Poison Weapon Enchantment/Poison 3
Resist Poison Enchantment/Poison 4
Olgreb's Toxic Radiance Poison 4
Poisonous Cloud Conjuration/Poison/Air 6

C - a book of Cantrips
Spells Type Level
*Confusing Touch Enchantment 1
Animate Skeleton Necromancy 1
Summon Small Mammals Summoning 1
Apportation Translocation 1



You had 1558 experience left.

 

[Zomg]

Yeah, wand of polymorph always turns them into humans for me for some reason, which are worth a fair bit of XP at that level and are almost defenseless without equipment.

 

[Malakal]

@Dirk
You could also have elarned summon small mammals to train summoning and to wall Yourself from enemies such as those. Seeing as You had over 1500 exp in pool and played High Elf... Those level one and two spells sometimes are insanely powerful. Summon mammals, blink, apportation, swiftness, repel missiles...

@Zomg
You mentioned that only worthwile amulet is the faith one. But what about resist corrosion? And about insanely useful resist mutation. I find warding very good in elven halls too.
Overall while amulets tend to be weaker than rings they do have some power...

In my current human Chaos Knight of Makhleb game I found res poison/electricity/greater life/+1AC/+1EV amulet (unfortunately also hunger and no tele) and am gathering gold to buy another great fire/cold/clarity/+3STR/+3DMG.

 

[Zomg]

rCorr and rMut are fine but you can usually just swap them in when you're doing stuff where you need them (as is Warding). Faith is a good full time thing if it matters for your god, esp. gift factory gods. I usually stop using faith around the point where you want to be able to toss on warding/rCorr/rMut/stasis on a moment's notice, like in the late game where you're doing slime/vault:8/zot. Of course good randart amulets can convince me to forgo it.

I find elven halls is pretty shitweak once you've got two sources of MR to protect you from banishment (one source if you have some base MR or enchantment levels) and see invisible. The enemies have no HP or AC at all. My archer characters usually drop shit like demonologists and annihilators in in less than 15-20 segments. The big vault on Elf:7 is also always connected to the rest of the floor only by a long corridor (sometimes even blocked by lava) which lets you kill them one at a time even if you draw several of them out at once. I did it before doing swamp/shoals/any of vault with the centaur monk game because he has a randart cloak with MR+a robe of MR and he got a helm of see invis from Oka.

The centaur monk game is kinda gay because I've already ascended two archer-types on akrasiac and I did a #random character game to try something new but I fell into my old archery pattern by like DL5. He even got a demon trident of speed from the Donald unique so he bears no resemblance to a monk at all anymore.

 

[Calem Ravenna]

Does Flight help avoid traps? I read it's basically levitation with a speed bonus, but I never used that for anything other than crossing lava/deep water.

 

[Zomg]

It's levitation except you can pick shit up from the ground. No inherent movement speed bonus but it makes the speed bonus from swiftness better (it's normally centaur speed, flight makes it spriggan speed - spriggan speed is the movement speed cap so they don't benefit). Either one will protect you from mineshaft and mechanical traps, magic traps (teleport/alarm/zot) always go off.

 

[Calem Ravenna]

Well, at least I won't get instantly killed by blade traps then. Maybe I'll even make it through Lair with a spellcaster for once, heh.

Still, I'm extremely paranoid abut Zot traps at the moment. Didn't mind them before really, but I didn't know they can banish to the Abyss. Lost my fighter in such a way, just after entering Zot:1 and I spent quite a bit of time training Locks and Traps to avoid something stupid like that.

Hopefully one of my next fifty wizards will fare better, provided I actually receive/find a useful book for once. But who am I kidding, will probably get one-shotted by a yaktaur captain anyway.

All right, no more whining. If it takes me another month to actually get anywhere near the finish, so be it.

 

[Malakal]

Aaand once again my char is dead. Raped by critical hit from enraged orb guardian. 30 AC and 30 EV and 20SH wasnt worth shit it seems. They have definitely buffed orb guardians, they are way more powerful than I remember. And also Ancient Liches, killed three before my unfortunate demise. Damn realm of zot got hardcore.

 

[Castanova]

Yes, when I first started playing on the online server and reading the "Recent Wins" page, I thought it was strange how 95% of the winning characters had Apportation learned as well as either the Control Teleport spell or +cTele jewelry. This was no matter what the starting race/class was. Now I know it's so you can effectively skip Zot:5 as well as most of the branch ends.

As much as I hate to say it (considering my first and only win so far exploited it), I think they need to nerf that strategy somehow.

 

[Zomg]

cTele doesn't work on Zot:5 though. Apportation just saves you from needing to kill a few extra orb guardians - which are just faster stone giants that don't throw anything (don't let a moth of wrath in there though, that sounds horribad) - unless you are extremely noisy and you wake up everything on both sides of the Zot 5 caves. All the guardians around the orb start out asleep and you can pull them out one by one with no danger once one side of the caves is clear. I really don't know why people are so enthusiastic for apportation. I guess it's just one spell level and you can train translocations with it?

cTele is nice for staying away from Pan lords on the way back out though.

 

[Castanova]

cTele does work on Zot:5 once you have the Orb. As long as you have even a mediocre character and maybe 10-20 charges/scrolls/spellcasts of Teleportation, you can repeatedly teleport until you randomly end up nearby the Orb. Then you cast Teleport again, Apportation the Orb, cast cTele and survive for maybe 2 or 3 turns. You win.

The ease/low-riskiness of this method versus having to clear out Zot:5 makes it almost a mandatory choice, imo. You never know if an Ancient Lich and Orb of Fire will wander in behind you or if you'll accidentally pull too many Orb Guardians.

 

[Zomg]

cTele does work on Zot:5 once you have the Orb.

Had no idea :shock:

As long as you have even a mediocre character and maybe 10-20 charges/scrolls/spellcasts of Teleportation, you can repeatedly teleport until you randomly end up nearby the Orb. Then you cast Teleport again, Apportation the Orb, cast cTele and survive for maybe 2 or 3 turns. You win.

Jeez, that sounds crazily dangerous to me. I guess it works. Does apportation have full LOS range? I can think of several insta-death disasters that could happen your way but then I guess my way isn't guaranteed safe either.

 

[Raghar]

are in a room full of gnolls, one of them is right next to you and you are fighting it. You flee up the stairwell, the gnoll next to you follows. You kill it, eat something, jack off, and wait for your wounds to heal.

And when you walk down stairs the rest of them are waiting with a prepared weapons to tear you to pieces. It's extremely dangerous with wizard, or characters who can't survive a lot of heavy blows.

You are also forgetting on one thing. Orb. It's not unreasonable assumption the Orb keeps opponents in stasis and only wakes them when its in danger. Obviously one person that is roaming its halls on its own volition is enough and Orb is keeping out of stasis only these characters that are on the same level as main character.

If you are killed, you'd join them.

It's quite reasonable considering what orb can do when main character has orb in its possession.

Still, I'm extremely paranoid abut Zot traps at the moment. Didn't mind them before really, but I didn't know they can banish to the Abyss.

That's not the worst they can do.

(A teleportation just near to an ancient mummy, that immediately summons, then teleportation to the other side of the same mummy, all teleportations in the area where controlled teleportation is impossible and where are creatures that can kill you quickly... It's still not the worst.)

 

[Castanova]

Jeez, that sounds crazily dangerous to me. I guess it works. Does apportation have full LOS range? I can think of several insta-death disasters that could happen your way but then I guess my way isn't guaranteed safe either.

Yeah, basically as soon as you can see the Orb, it's yours. Obviously, before doing all this you, you try to pre-buff as much as possible. It's not that bad to survive a few turns with Deflect Missiles, Regen, Invis, a Potion of Resistance, Oco's Armor, etc., all up at the same time. You don't even need to re-cast because you're doing this so quickly. On top of all that, if you've got any stealth levels, half the Orb Guardians/Liches/etc., don't even know you're there at first.

 

[Zomg]

I'm afraid to give it a shot with the centaur, they have a 200 stealth ap and the hooves give a big stealth penalty. In retrospect my halfing could have done it easily, I was having to shout to wake up orb guardians and shit

I bet it would be sickeningly easy with the controlled blink spell, it only downgrades to semi-controlled on no cTele levels. You're probably only like what, 4-5 controlled blinks away from apporting the orb when you're in the little Zot fallopian tubes, and blinks will never let you step on a trap so you don't have to worry about a Zot trap paralyzing you or something before you can detect it.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS I HAVE STARTED THIS GAME MY BEST EFFORT IS WITH A TROLL BERSERKER ONLY DUNGEON LEVEL 7

 

[Malakal]

BROS I HAVE STARTED THIS GAME MY BEST EFFORT IS WITH A TROLL BERSERKER ONLY DUNGEON LEVEL 7

KEEP ROKCIN BRO! BERSERKERERS AND TROLLS MEAK GOOD STARTER CHARS, U WILL LERN FAST NO NEED TO E BRIAN SURGEON HERE.

 

[Malakal]

Aizul just raped my earth elementalist-summoner hybrid. Sleep -> position himself with some random mobs around me -> kill. I had no blink nor scrolls and survived exactly one round after waking up. Should not have tried to fight him and tried tp instead. The problem is it was an unexplored level and god knows what could be there, I already escaped another named enemy...

 

[Zomg]

Okawaru centaur with a 1.5hand weapon and some unarmed combat levels is highly recommended, they get a ton of headbutts/hoof kicks/punches and I think they all get the damage bonus from might. With that demon trident of speed he was one-rounding orb guardians and shredding orbs of fire as fast as I've ever seen them go down, didn't even use haste.

 

[Zomg]

Anyone in the woodwork here have any advice about getting the Pan runes? I'm going for my first attempt at a 15 runer on akrasiac with a demonspawn wizard of vehumet and I've finished getting the hell runes, just have the 5 pan runes, the abyssal rune and the tomb rune left. I don't think tomb should be too bad if I save some royal jellies for stat restoration and the abyss is non-threatening at this point outside of starvation. He cleared Zot:5 before he even started the hell stuff.

One piece of advice I'd give is that really late game conjurers can cast 6th level conjuration/X spells when they have no levels in X at all, and with a fairly high power. Even all-out fire conjurers should learn beam of cold before doing the fire hell, two-shotting fiends and balrugs with ice beams is immensely better than trying to fuck around with orb of destruction or something. Unfortunately I didn't think of this until I'd already finished it. Luckily the character has 200hp + regeneration 2 + the "draws power from death" demonspawn mutation so I had a huge margin for stupid and I could generally refill his mana using sublimation of blood then kill some crappy enemies to refill the HP.

 

[Malakal]

Isnt firestorm damage like 65% unresistable anyway? Why bother with learning spells from the cold school when You can spam one level 9 spell. Saves You levels to memorize and mana too. I would put all those spare levels into defensive spells.

About Pan: I had good runs in there, but those depend on the shape of the level. It is possible to meet a horde of smite spamming monsters in there in those large corridors, and that is rather dangerous... I would reccomend resist mutation (corrosion is not a big danger there), stocking up on enough food (since You never know how much time You are going to spend there), prefereably of the lighter kind (since You are going to find a lot of loot) and watching out for Pan Lords and more annoying demons.

Other than that? Firestorm, Icestorm would be perfect combination, haste, swiftness and flight, repel missiles, occu armor or stoneskin or huge ac, blink or controlled blink, means of teleportation (prefereably wand), of healing (also wand), mandatory level two resists in cold, fire, life (if You are careful those can be not necessary, but well, betetr safe than sorry). Try stocking on crystal ball of seeing and energy. Robe of the Archmagi?

 

[Terror Teats]

BROS I HAVE STARTED THIS GAME MY BEST EFFORT IS WITH A TROLL BERSERKER ONLY DUNGEON LEVEL 7

KEEP ROKCIN BRO! BERSERKERERS AND TROLLS MEAK GOOD STARTER CHARS, U WILL LERN FAST NO NEED TO E BRIAN SURGEON HERE.

No, wait, I think BLOBERT is actually trying to contribute. This has been a strange trend since his quasi-banning.

 

[Malakal]

He is, and I gave him a serious response. Only written in a different way. Nothing wrong with that, keeps everyone entertained.

 

[Terror Teats]

I know, but I'm getting chills.