Let's Play Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

[7hm]

Best bet vs an invis attacker is luring him into a corridor and unloading something deadly, preferably a good wand, but depending on just what it is and your build curare needles, or even just poison needles or plain melee might do the trick.

It's weird. I've been spamming him with Meph. cloud and fireballs but he runs away before I can kill him. Not an orc or anything. Are there permanent invisible creatures that would show up on lvl 10?

Yep.

unseen horror
"These creatures are usually unseen by the eyes of most, and those few who have seen them would rather not have." Moves like a bat, invisible, and flees when wounded. A purple x if you can see invisible. The bane of mages and EV fighters everywhere.
Good strategies include mephitic cloud, hallways, and teleporting. Bad strategies include running (unless a hasted spriggan) and fighting in the open. Poison and sticky flame can be useful if you can hit it at least once. Refrigeration works, toxic radiance doesn't. Corona works, too, if you have it. Also try Summon Butterflies.
Taking them through clouds will let you see where they are.
It hits you. Helpless, you fail to dodge its attack! It hits you.

Edit - I'm assuming you're missing the fireballs / meph clouds.

 

[Ashery]

Ah, the joys of carlessness...

Toying around with a DE Fire Elementalist and was doing quite well until after auto-traveling to L4 (Dropped off some stuff at the temple, gotta love 6str) was manually traveling around and completely missed the spiny frog that had shown up and am now sitting at around 8hp with various escape possibilities:

Wand of Para, if I'm lucky and it's not resisted, I can get the fuck out of the level and rest.

Scroll of Tele, guaranteed escape if I can survive that first round.

Wand of Disintigration, best bet if it'll one shot kill'em.

Or throw into the mix a couple heal pots to better my chances of surviving the next hits.

Oh god...

Edit:

Fuck yea, same situation again, but this time it's legit. Unfortunately, having used my big heal pot to fix the fuck up earlier, I'm now left with no buffer. Pretty much only left with using my wand of para as I doubt the sea snake will be affected by fear.

 

[Fafnir]

Hmm, anyone mind telling me if it's worth keeping Daggers for the stabbing or is it worth more to use a Short Sword for the overal larger output of damage?

 

[oldmanpaco]

unseen horror
"These creatures are usually unseen by the eyes of most, and those few who have seen them would rather not have." Moves like a bat, invisible, and flees when wounded. A purple x if you can see invisible. The bane of mages and EV fighters everywhere.
Good strategies include mephitic cloud, hallways, and teleporting. Bad strategies include running (unless a hasted spriggan) and fighting in the open. Poison and sticky flame can be useful if you can hit it at least once. Refrigeration works, toxic radiance doesn't. Corona works, too, if you have it. Also try Summon Butterflies.
Taking them through clouds will let you see where they are.
It hits you. Helpless, you fail to dodge its attack! It hits you.

Edit - I'm assuming you're missing the fireballs / meph clouds.

Goddammit. This fucker killed my best character so far. The part where he moves around like a bat is a pain in the ass.

I am hitting him with the cloud but it moves away and then my random fireballs are either not killing him or missing. I am very upset by this.

BTW is there a consolidated list of spells anywhere? I know in that BD link they list all the spells and books but it is not exactly easy to use.

 

[Malakal]

Hmm, anyone mind telling me if it's worth keeping Daggers for the stabbing or is it worth more to use a Short Sword for the overal larger output of damage?

Daggers suck, stabbing sucks, unfortunately. Later almost everything will notice and rape you or is outright unfazed by stabbing. Stabbing and stealth as it is now is only early-mid game strategy, unless you find some insane artifacts switch to swords.

 

[7hm]

unseen horror
"These creatures are usually unseen by the eyes of most, and those few who have seen them would rather not have." Moves like a bat, invisible, and flees when wounded. A purple x if you can see invisible. The bane of mages and EV fighters everywhere.
Good strategies include mephitic cloud, hallways, and teleporting. Bad strategies include running (unless a hasted spriggan) and fighting in the open. Poison and sticky flame can be useful if you can hit it at least once. Refrigeration works, toxic radiance doesn't. Corona works, too, if you have it. Also try Summon Butterflies.
Taking them through clouds will let you see where they are.
It hits you. Helpless, you fail to dodge its attack! It hits you.

Edit - I'm assuming you're missing the fireballs / meph clouds.

Goddammit. This fucker killed my best character so far. The part where he moves around like a bat is a pain in the ass.

I am hitting him with the cloud but it moves away and then my random fireballs are either not killing him or missing. I am very upset by this.

BTW is there a consolidated list of spells anywhere? I know in that BD link they list all the spells and books but it is not exactly easy to use.

Yep. I'm not sure if this is 100% updated for 0.7 though. The learndb is better for that.

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Table_of_spells_by_school

 

[Haba]

So... God gifts me finally with a suitable weapon. Joyed, I equip it. It turns out to be an axe of distortion. Shitty enchantment too.

Description says that unequipping might hurt you or cause banishment. Bah, who cares. So I unequip.

And end up in Abyss. At level 12.

 

[oldmanpaco]

So... God gifts me finally with a suitable weapon. Joyed, I equip it. It turns out to be an axe of distortion. Shitty enchantment too.

Description says that unequipping might hurt you or cause banishment. Bah, who cares. So I unequip.

And end up in Abyss. At level 12.

This is why I play as a demigod.

Yep. I'm not sure if this is 100% updated for 0.7 though. The learndb is better for that.

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Table_of_spells_by_school

Thanks.

 

[7hm]

So... God gifts me finally with a suitable weapon. Joyed, I equip it. It turns out to be an axe of distortion. Shitty enchantment too.

Description says that unequipping might hurt you or cause banishment. Bah, who cares. So I unequip.

And end up in Abyss. At level 12.

You survive?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Hmm, anyone mind telling me if it's worth keeping Daggers for the stabbing or is it worth more to use a Short Sword for the overall larger output of damage?

Once your dex and stabbing skill is high enough, a short sword will do higher damage per stab anyways. All short blades give a flat damage bonus before the stabbing multiplier, it's just easier to hit the cap (30) with daggers.

And unless they changed it, stabbing a sleeping enemy should be pretty much a one hit kill if this skill has been kept high. The damage multiplier increases exponentially, ending up at over 1000% bonus damage (After the +30 flat) against a sleeping target when using a short blade. Of course, high enough armor can diminish this severely. Stabbing a petrified monster over and over, for example, nets you fuck all. And yeah, once you get past the lair or so, things start to turn shitty for sleep stabbing, since lots of stuff has very high MR, and you can't naturally sneak up on a room filled with monsters, because all they need is one roll out of a dozen per turn to wake the whole room and you're fucked. Confuse stabbing and invis stabbing can still deal with a lot of shit though. I mostly consider it useless because of the number of enemies that will never sleep and have ranged attacks is too high for a featherweight to try getting into melee range on a regular basis. Nice for when you find a sleeping unique or umpteen headed hydra all alone though.

 

[oldmanpaco]

So LVL 3 of the mines has a Golden Dragon Skeleton and a Storm Dragon Skeleton. My lvl 11 Wizards is very frightened.

Anyway what’s the difference between monsters and their skeletal versions?

On the plus side when I jumped down to LVL 4 to avoid a horrible, horrible death I found a shop selling a ring of see invisible.

Unseen horror you are going to pay. Oh yes you are.

 

[7hm]

Mr Hawking: Part 4 - Crawling Through the Lair

The Amazing Adventures of Mr Hawking the Spriggan Enchanter of Nemelex Xobeh

Part Four - Crawling Through the Lair

... in which Mr. Hawking begins to explore the Lair of Beasts and learns the power of Nemelex.

We rejoin Mr. Hawking just outside the Temple. In the last chapter of his adventure he decided to worship Nemelex Xobeh. With his choice of god decided, it is time for him to make his way down into to the Lair of Beasts.

Just south-west of the Temple entrance Mr. Hawking has yet another unique encounter - there are an absolute ton of these guys incidently - with Edmund. The info on Edmund is:

Edmund is Sigmund's younger, jealous, and less magically talented brother. He has more money and wit though, and usually caries around a Flail of Protection!

Neither brother gave Mr. Hawking any trouble.

Still trying to make his way down to the Lair, Mr. Hawking meets another unique. This time it's a Shadow Imp named Grinder.

A unique shadow imp that weilds a pain weapon (a club, usually) and has the following spells: pain, paralyse, blink and brain feed.

Grinder gets ground up. ))

Mr. Hawking sees another Jelly. He doesn't want to get his weapons or his new robe damaged, so he decides that it's time to start using the cards he found earlier in the dungeon - time to start worshipping Nemelex properly.

Ouch! The first card he draws is Torment, which casts Symbol of Torment and cuts his health in half. This isn't exactly going as planned.

He does end up killing the Jelly without ruining his equipment though.

This weird plant-like formation is actually a fungal colony composed of Ballistomycetes. They appear throughout the dungeon, spawning Giant Spores, which explode to enlarge the formation. Mr. Hawking has heard about them so he knows the trick to dealing with them.

Step 1) Don't let the Giant Spores come anywhere near you. Run like hell if they're close - as a Spriggan Mr. Hawking has an edge here.

Step 2) Destroy the active ballistomycete to kill part of the formation.

Step 3) Repeat step 2 until the entire formation dies.

Step 4) Profit!!!!

Mr. Hawking steps into the Lair of Beasts. Right away he notices that the ground is covered in lush grass and the air itself seems more full of life. He feels at home in this natural environ, but he does wonder how it can exist ten floors underground (Crawl, like most roguelikes, doesn't stand up too well to scrutiny by storyfags and larpers).

South of the entrance Mr. Hawking finds a great lake. He is unable to cross it, but just as well because he spots both an Ice Beast and an Ice Statue. The Ice Statue explains the red X's. Statues can't move but can be very dangerous opponents. Mr. Hawking will do well to stay outside the range of this statue for now.

Uh oh. The Ice Beast woke up and, unexpectedly, is able to cross the deep water. It's also immune to most of what Mr. Hawking can throw at it right now; and it's big enough to squish Mr. Hawing in melee combat. This is very bad. Time to run.

Mr. Hawking made a beginner's mistake and ran the wrong way. Instead of heading for the stairs he decided to run into an unexplored corridor. As a result he now finds himself running from a pack of wolves in addition to the Ice Beast.

This is very, very bad.

Mr. Hawking manages to put some distance between himself and his pursuers by using Ensorcelled Hibernation in a single space corridor, but his escape route is blocked by a Hippogriff.

Mr. Hawking subdues the hippogriff using a wand of paralysis and, thanking the gods above, takes a moment to pray.

You'll notice here that when Mr. Hawking prays (this isn't the first time he's done it - I pray above almost every corpse and useless item) the item he stands on top of is sacrificed to his god, Nemelex Xobeh. Different gods want different sacrifices, but Nemelex isn't picky. He wants everything, though what you sacrifice to him will influence what kind of gifts you get. The odds are very strong that Mr. Hawking will end up with mostly summoning decks because as a vegetarian he has no use for corpses and almost all of the dead bodies will go to Nemelex.

Well this is no good. The known exit is blocked by a Polar Bear and an Ice Beast. Time to make a new escape plan - and fast!

Mr. Hawking decides to dive down the stairs that he found beside the hippogriff earlier.

Now safe on Lair:2, Mr. Hawking finds a Book of Power. Some good stuff here.

Mr. Hawking sacrifices the corpse of a War Dog and gets his first gift from Nemelex!

It's:

Not sure what type of cards yet, but I have an inkling that it will be a deck of summonings.

Mr. Hawking gets chased by a Hydra and uses his god gift deck of cards. It is, as predicted, a deck of summonings. The first card he chooses is Repulsiveness, which summons this Ugly Thing to protect him. That probably won't be enough.

The Ugly Purple Thing on it's own wasn't enough but another Ugly Thing, a skeleton monster and an animated Club were enough to finish off the Hydra. Fantastic!

Back on Lair:1, Mr. Hawking decides to find out if Polar Bears can be confused.

Yes, yes they can.

Mr. Hawking finds the Book of Morphology. This is the first completely useless book (for a SpEn) that Mr. Hawking has found.

Mr. Hawking knows that dealing with an Ice Beast is a whole lot easier when you have a couple Grizzly Bears to back you up.


The best part about Nemelex is that you make him happy by drawing cards, which leads to getting more cards, which leads to more of this fun stuff. The bad part is that you don't get full XP for kills your summons make - so you need to be careful that you don't overuse them. In this case, Mr. Hawking has no other way to deal with the Ice Beast safely.

This is why you don't get too close to Ice Statues. Mr. Hawking made a very risky move doing this. Very stupid move in fact, looking back at it.

That said...

(Mr. Hawking's Spiny Frogs crossed the lake to kill the Ice Statue for him.)

Mr. Hawking finds the Book of Wizardry and immediately memorizes the Selective Amnesia spell. This will allow him to dump some of his low power spells later in the game to make room for stronger stuff.

He now commands a veritible army of wasps, but Mr. Hawking still pays attention to the details. He stabs a seven headed Hydra to death.

Mr. Hawking finds the Book of Enchantments. A great book for an Enchanter (obviously). He now won't need to spend the money to buy the one he saw in a shop earlier.

Mr. Hawking walks into a room filled with Yaks. Though not nearly as dangerous as their Death Yak cousins, they still pack a punch. He uses a legendary deck of cards that Nemelex gave him recently and comes up with an animated Executioner's axe. Good bye yaks.

Mr. Hawking steps onto Lair:7 and is concerned by what he sees. He's heard about a Lair level that has this type of layout with lots of small lakes. It is usually filled with electric eels - very dangerous opponents at this stage of the game. He needs to excerise caution here.

So far there have been no eels, electric or otherwise, but Mr. Hawking does encounter a unique named Gastronok. Gastronok is sleeping so Mr. Hawking has a couple quick minutes to check his journal for information on the new foe.

A greedy elephant slug who ate a wizard for lunch and now casts spells!

He has access to Airstrike, which uses Smite-style targetting and can really hurt Mr. Hawking. Mr. Hawking needs to either deal with Gastronok quickly, or just run away.

And Gastronok is dealt with thusly.

And here ends another chapter in Mr. Hawking's adventures.

In the next chapter Mr. Hawking will finish clearing the first seven floors of the Lair and move on to Lair:8, where reside death yaks, more hydras, and a vault of some kind.

 

[Luigi]

Make a screen of your inventory list.

 

[7hm]

Make a screen of your inventory list.

At this point I can't. I'm a fair ways past this. I'll start taking more screens of inventory though. I'm trying to catch up the postings to my actual play. I'm at least a full update ahead.

I'll probably have another update around 5 or 6pm est so that I can play tonight.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Didn't your randart ring grant elec immunity? Should make electric eels a joke iirc. Also, I suggest you memorize that haste spell if you haven't already. It's a mistake I often made with my SpEn, assuming I didn't really need the extra speed and the food cost wasn't worth it. When you run into centaurs or enchanted weapons (Or something that can slow you), haste will be a godsend.

 

[Malakal]

Haste is always a godsend, there cant be too much speed. With katana of speed its a total massacre. But those are so fucking rare...

 

[oldmanpaco]

All I have to say is: Goddamn Hydras.

This game makes me say goddamn a lot.

 

[7hm]

Fucking playing while distracted. Fuck.

Updates will be later tonight.

I'll need ideas for race / background combos beyond just lordpaco's Demigod Wizard.

 

[Elwro]

Sludge Elf Transmuter.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Deep dwarf necromancer is another popular (And powerful) one you could do. Vampires and Mummies would be cool to see too, as would an archer of some kind. Maybe some kind of Chei worshipping Mummy caster, and a vampire archer? Or Mummy arcane marksman maybe, since vampires especially suck at archery? I dunno.

 

[lightbane]

I already asked for an human/chaos knight character...

 

[Yeesh]

I'll need ideas for race / background combos beyond just lordpaco's Demigod Wizard.

Two words: Kobold Anything.

 

[oldmanpaco]

You're not going to need any other combos. Lord Paco is going to win it for you.

 

[7hm]

You're not going to need any other combos. Lord Paco is going to win it for you.

heh. Hope so. I'd keep posting if that were true though. Just ascending with 3 runes appears to be about half the content in the game, if not less.

In any event. The order once Mr. Hawking meets his demise will be:

lordpaco - Demigod Wizard
unnamed - Human Chaos Knight of ????
unnamed - Sludge Elf Transmuter
unnamed - Deep Dwarf Necromancer
unnamed - Mummy Arcane Necromancer (of Chei??)
unnamed - Kobold something

I need names for the above, and a god for the HuCK. I'm thinking Xom for maximum fun if not maximum lifespan.

At some point I'm also going to do a Spriggan Berserker.

I'm also going to do a game with the console online.

 

[Dyskolos]

yes Xom. play the monkey and dance for my amusement.