Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup: Now with 50% more Sigmund

[Cogwheel]

Once I find a suitable weapon. That's a good answer, but I'm not sure if the rest of the audience will be happy with leaving something like this up to my discretion Anyway, I never used darts. If I need ranged attacks for melee characters, and invocations don't cover it (hi Makhleb), I generally use wands for the purpose.

Edit: Spears aren't actually all bad, as a weapon to bless goes. Sure, it favors dex-heavy characters more than tanks, but on the other hand, it means I can carry around a shield, and there's something to be said for that. Just laying out all the options.

[Player_Zero]

Another point of note: if you find the Sword of Power or like impossibly powerful artefact then you will immediately be jumped by ancient liches, mummy priests, your highest level ghost, etc. in an attempt to rid you of your pathetic hope.

[Cogwheel]

Another point of note: if you find the Sword of Power or like impossibly powerful artefact then you will immediately be jumped by ancient liches, mummy priests, your highest level ghost, etc. in an attempt to rid you of your pathetic hope.

The RNG is funny like that. That said, it prefers a different sort of irony, in my case. Such as a +8/+8 singing sword being found by my berserker. Who uses an axe.

[Aragehaor]

I say you bless the spear, If only because it sounds like it will cause all sorts of good and horrible things.





(Side note. is it normal for a level one Merfolk chaos knight to get jumped by three gnolls on the first level? only to kill them and level up twice then proceed to get destroyed by a poison mite just a few moments later? )

[Adumbration]

(Side note. is it normal for a level one Merfolk chaos knight to get jumped by three gnolls on the first level? only to kill them and level up twice then proceed to get destroyed by a poison mite just a few moments later? )

That sounds about right, yes.

[Aragehaor]

That sounds about right, yes.

I can see that im going to love this game then.

[Smight]

Question,
Vampire is said to have sharp teeth as ability, but how and when do you use them?
I got him to lvl 5 , and got killed by snake.
SNAAAAAAAKKKKEEEE!!!!

[Player_Zero]

Question,
Vampire is said to have sharp teeth as ability, but how and when do you use them?
I got him to lvl 5 , and got killed by snake.
SNAAAAAAAKKKKEEEE!!!!

Sharp teeth is an unarmed attack. If you attack with your hands you'll also do a biting attack.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

This LP was inpiring enough to get the download. This is how my first game ended:

Spoiler

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Somehow, this picture is meant as praise for your LP. Although to be quite honest I'm not sure how.

[Domochevsky]

Maybe it means that you're a sucker for inevitable loss and death?

(I also had a look at the folder structure of the game... i think you can delete the files in the "morgue" folder in order to prevent ghosts of your former characters to show up. Dunno why you would want to do that, but there you go. >_> )

[Flickerdart]

Or you could share them with everyone else, so that Casualty can remain heroic even in undeath!

[Milskidasith]

I just got a 9000 point scoring Troll Monk of Nemelex. He wound up eventually dying because he went down into an area with two trolls and a hill giant by the stairs, teleported into a massive pile of green oozes and orc priests, and was smited to death slowly while attempting to escape.

[Cogwheel]

A Demon Trident would really be too perfect for Redshirt. That means I'll never find it, of course, but still. Where's a good place to find demon weapons?

But yes, I may snap and just bless the spear >_> Or die before any of this even becomes an issue.

On vampires: You make attacks automatically, along with other attacks. That's what sharp teeth means. If you're hungry, you may draw blood as well.

Flicker: Show me how to upload files and I'll see to it.

Mil: Don't worry, you'll soon learn to ignore 9k characters in favour of 6-digit scores.

[Flickerdart]

Just zip the files and throw them on RapidShare or MegaUpload or whatever.

[Cogwheel]

I am tech-inept, good sir. Pretend you're talking to a neanderthal, and explain how to zip files? >_>

Edit: Nevermind.

[Cogwheel]

Take this, unpack the files into your Morgue folder, and you too can be assaulted by the Zenhulk ghost of heroism.

[Cogwheel]

Spoiler

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Pictured: Wonder and abundant glee at finding an Enchant Weapon III scroll.

Also pictured: Said wonder and abundant glee being rapidly tempered by disappointment at finding the lamest EW3 scroll ever.



Komodo Dragons. Created so that poison resistance guarantees nothing, because the Devteam hates you. Komodo dragons are powerful. Their bite and corpse also sicken - AKA food poisoning. Being sick stops natural health regeneration while it lasts, and may randomly deal ability damage to you. Sickness is nasty, if not directly life-threatening.



Above: The RNG mocks me. A +4 ring is an excellent thing to have. Intelligence, though? Really, game? That hardly seems fair. I swear, the game isn't normally this cruel. It's doing everything possible to thwart Redshirt short of actually killing him. But I will endure.

That last sentence was a special kind of sentence. A death sentence, to be precise.



So many sheep. They're not that bad, but they come in huge numbers. Good news? They leave large amounts of meat when butchered. About 6 per sheep, generally.



Black snakes. Immune to poison? No problem. They're still faster than you, hard to kill, and hit for entirely too much damage, so you're dead anyway.

At least there's an unidentified scroll there. I wonder what it does? I hope it's Acquirement.



Oh, that RNG. Such a card.



Enough of that nonsense, off I go to floor 6 of the Lair. I will hit level 12 soon, and if mutations are not forthcoming, I'm going to be very annoyed.



Whyyyyyyyy.

I hate spiny frogs. Why am I made to face this horrid fusion of toads and hydralisks? It just doesn't seem fair.


This is not the spellbook you saw in the last screenshot. That one was useless. This one is too, for the most part, but it contains Apportation, which I will learn at a later point. Because it might be useful. Once. Much later. If I get that far, which I will not.

Next up, I find another unidentified scroll! We're down to about three scrolls that I haven't identified yet, this is going to be great.



I have made a terrible miscalculation. Not funny, RNG. Not funny.



Entrance to the Snake Pits, a 5-floor dungeon. You might say I should go there, since I have poison resistance and thus nothing to fear. The firing line's over there, by the way. Help yourself.

The snake pits are full of black and grey snakes (grey: black, but stronger and faster), normal snakes, brown snakes, and countless horrifyingly powerful nagas of all kinds. Plenty of adventurers, too. It is not a nice place, so I'm leaving it for now. I hate the Snake Pits, but it's the lesser of several evils, in the long run.



Finally, testing items as mysterious as they are dubious starts to pay off! This is a gain strength potion - others of its kind include gain dexterity, intelligence and experience. It gives a +1 strength mutation.



It... it's a good thing I have a firedrake on my side. That thing you see is a hydra. It's very strong, immune to poison, and has fairly high AC. It also regenerates at an unusually high speed. It's generated with between four and eight heads, and each head gets its own attack. Sounds broken, I know.

Enter bladed weapons. Deal slashing damage to it, and it loses a head. Good, right? Wrong. If the weapon wasn't a flaming one (troll/ghoul monks, you may abandon hope at this point), it then sprouts two heads in the old head's place, and also regenerates a bunch of health. Really. Frankly, aside from tier-1 demons and unseen horrors, there's nothing I consider as bad as hydras. They're horrid even when not using bladed weapons (Redshirt, thankfully, is not).

I sent the firedrake at it. Lots of combat out of my field of view, and then silence. So I assumed they killed eachother, and went on my merry way.



I love being right. I really do. Right now, the sheer overwhelming rightness of my predictions is about to make me weep. Tears of joy, naturally, at Redshirt's long-delayed destruction.



Remember that disc of storms? I tried using it. It's a funny story, really.



It gets funnier when I realize, after four shots, that it's damaging me too. I ended up having to chug down a few healing potions of both kinds, a potion of speed to run away really quickly, and basically banish everything. Fun times.



And I'm stopping here before playing Redshirt any longer tonight because, as the game would put it, Cog's peace of mind is almost dead.

Those of you paying attention to my inventory (honestly, who does?) may have noticed a few discrepancies. I spent an ID scroll on a ring which was, shock-horror, a ring of ice. I also dumped lots of things I'm not likely to need back at a stash location on Lair 2, as nothing on that floor picks items up. Oh, and I'll be taking on the orc mines in a level or two, I suspect. I need gear.

That little golden blob, incidentally, is royal jelly. Lightweight, filling, edible for anyone, doubles as a restore abilities potion, and understandably rare. Just in case you were wondering.

[Domochevsky]

This stuff starts to get nerve-wrecking. D:

(And no, none of my characters made it past lvl 6)

[Cogwheel]

This stuff starts to get nerve-wrecking. D:

(And no, none of my characters made it past lvl 6)

If you survive, yes. Typically, survival in Crawl is exponential: If you can get past certain points, it's almost guaranteed that you will survive for a while past them. Paranoia is similarly exponential, since you don't want to lose such a character.

Normally, this presents no problem to me. Redshirt, being a mind-bogglingly pathetic character whose survival is akin to a freak accident, is nerve-wrecking to play.

[Gorgondantess]

Ugh. Hydras. I recently played a merfolk crusader, had a +5/+6 trident of protection, a randart +3/+6 EV leather armor, boots, gloves, a +2 helmet, a randart ring, a +5 ring of protection. Oh, and an amulet of resist slowing, when I could cast berzerker rage at will. Tearing through the levels, tearing through the levels, get cornered by 2 8 headed hydras.
Yeah... I died there.

[Milskidasith]

I really want to Let's Play my adventures now... anyway, I've had a bunch of characters come and go. More Troll Monks of various gods went certain distances and then died, a draconian necromancer I had managed to get all the way to level 8, where I found out I was a pale dragon and had steam breath (woo!), but I never got any other spellbooks and got cornered by a group of undead, and I stupidly hadn't memorized the anti-undead spell, I had a few deep elf casters, including an Enchanter who *somehow* managed to survive mostly by stabbing the crap out of things and getting a book of war charms so I could stab the crap out of frozen enemies, until he died to an ogre, and then I played a demonspawn fighter (still playing) who found a +2 platemail and got black scales for +5 AC. I have no doubt he's going to die to Sigmund or something, because I can't have nice things

EDIT: Although one character in particular I had was, I am not kidding, Famine, a Troll Monk I fully expected to die because I was going to play him without ever eating any meat from a creature unless I was at starving. Other food was fair game.

He got a randart poison immunity, +AC, +4 int, +Fire resist, ++ ice resist ring and a ring of sustenance. Then, he found Trog, got absurd amounts of piety with sacrificed corpses, and found the most awe inspiring of all places... The Hive... where he left with over 30 honeycombs and about a dozen things of royal jelly, and he had 7 meat rations at the time. Suffice to say, Famine was the most well fed of all my trolls, until he died to, of all things, another troll beating the crap out of him.

[13_CBS]

I'm completely, utterly new to Dungeon Crawl (and Roguelikes in general), but this LP (which is very funny, informative, and interesting--keep it up!) has intrigued me. Not enough to play, since I'm not a masochist, but I am curious about how the game ends.

Therefore...what combination of race and class stands the best chance of beating the game? Would you mind generating such a character if too many characters die and we end up getting stuck around the early levels?

[† Dran †]

Ive had the most success with dwarven fighters but as far as I can see there is no winning combo at all... your going to die, no matter what you do.

Oh and Sigmund is a ****.

[Gorgondantess]

Pah. You people, with your dwarf fighters and your troll monks. You need to try something good and scaling, like a sludge elf transmuter, or a vampire enchanter.

[Cogwheel]

Gorgon: You people and your luck with loot.

CBS: Glad you're enjoying the LP. As for easy combinations, minotaur berserkers or fighters, dwarf fighters and troll monks are all good picks for beginners. Makhleb chaos knight dwarves or orcs, if you want something more interesting. Deep elf conjurers if you fancy casting, and orc priests of Beogh are good too.

Mil: I envy you. Never got anywhere with draconians, as much as I want to. So casters are the way to go with them?

Eeeeeeveryone else: An update is currently in the works.



You know, I'd love to try some things. Like crusaders, draconians, successful Yredelemnul followers, and an effective necromancer. A good enchanter would be fun, too. It just seems to go horribly wrong and I never get anywhere when I play them.

[Vitruviansquid]

Gosh, I wish I could remember where one could procure a Demon Trident. I'd put my money on Hell Knights as the most reliable source. Of course, there's always the chance you could find one on the ground or in a shop.

@CBS: Come on, man! One of us! One of us! One of us!

[Gorgondantess]

Well, let's see...
Merfolk crusaders are piss easy. Grab spears, and you've got the highest weapons stat in the game to get you through your formative levels, until you get the win button that is berzerk.

With draconians, actually, it's usually best to use something that has a good weapons skill, but doesn't rely on heavy armor. Paladins are a good choice, as you can offset their lack of AC with a shield.

And every time I've gotten to level 2 with a deep elf necromancer, I've gotten to at least dungeon level 6. My highest score ever was a deep elf necromancer- I think I got something like 12 randarts with that guy, one of them being an interesting +12/+1 whip of draining, and I think see invisibility... that was cool.
The trick is to, first of all, spam the entrance, leaving and coming back until you get a character with at least 20 intelligence. Then don't waste your mana and spell slots on animate skeleton or animate dead- get vampiric draining, regeneration, and disrupt undead, and you'll be able to kill any non-demons pretty easily, until you get to the stupidly powerful enemies. That's why you worship kikwhatever to get bolt of draining as soon as possible, so you can manage stuff like iron trolls or hydras.
Undead minions are overrated. If you want to get something done, do it yourself.

[Cogwheel]

Interesting advice, Gorgon... I'll give that a try with one of my non-LP characters while I upload these screenshots.

And I suspected Hell Knights myself. They're kinda rare, though. Ah well.

Oh, and CBS, I didn't see your request. For the record, Casualty is an example of a practical character, but feel free to vote for whatever once Redshirt dies. And he will.

[Cogwheel]

Spoiler

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War dog: Upgraded hound that inexplicably sickens you when eaten. I don't know either. Fairly vicious, in any case, and once again, rare outside the Lair.



Blink frogs on the next floor. Once again, mercifully rare outside the Lair. They come in packs, hit about as hard as spiny frogs and, while devoid of poison, blink all over the place.

And you thought blink dogs were a crazy idea.



New players, take note of this handy technique, commonly known as stair dancing. Monsters - mindless undead and ghosts excepted - follow you up and down stairs if they're next to you at the time. This can be used for a divide and conquer sort of strategy. Or, more commonly, you get chased up stairs when running away and get yourself killed.



Ah, the welcome face of capitalism. Let's see what it has to offer.



How delightfully worthless. At least there's a Heal Wounds potion to grab. Honestly, this isn't any different from Redshirt's luck so far.



Not familiar with giant snails? Slugs with an AC boost. This game has a lot of poorly disguised monster remixes that, elsewhere, would be palette swaps.

Incidentally, slugs/snails are poisonous. Not that this concerns me in the least.



Elephant slugs are the final version of these creatures. Basically, 130 HP instead of the 65 that giant slugs have, 40 damage on the bite rather than 23, 1 less EV, 2 more AC. I don't like them. That said, they have the same speed issues as ever.



Identified that ring you saw in the last screenshot. Handy. Also, another shop on the same level. Crazy, I know. It's strange how all the shops in the game so far are in the Lair. Where there's no one who might shop, or even understand the concept of money.



Since the scroll let me identify a second item and I had nothing overly important to ID, I used it to formally identify the disc of storms.

Now, let's see what they have to offer here.



I'm disappointed, but by no means surprised. I guess the potion of mutation might be nice if you feel like taking stupid risks.



Pictured to the left: the Yak, a sheep with stat boosts. Otherwise very similar. This game has a bizarre yak obsession, as you will later see.



Level 12! And with it, a strength boost.




About time. I am now immune to pain (basically an element) and torment. This is better than it sounds. Endgame demons of all kinds spam pain, and tier-1 demons are fond of using Torment. Torment halves the HP of all non-demon, non-undead creatures in sight, including you. Demons using this frequently is very bad. So, I'm slightly more prepared for an endgame I will never see.

Shame about the Int boost, though.



Fantastic. Artifact armour at last. This might even replace my platemail, actually. Lemme just identify it.



Yes, RNG, you're very funny.

You know, I'm still not sure where that little bit of dexterity damage came from.



Down to floor 8! You know, floor 7 was relatively easy. Now that I've said that, of course, I'm going to die.



Ohgodwhy BANISH.



This is after I banished it (took three tries, but I'm drowning in piety at this point) and went out to fight some random creatures. Got accosted by various things, more blink frogs than have any right to exist. Had to run back in here.

In the Lair, rooms like this are a godsend (those worshipping Trog, Sif Muna, Yredelemnul or Okawaru can expect proper godsends too). Nothing here can open doors. So, close the doors, and rest as you see fit. Open the doors, and you have a bottleneck for your use.



Found two wands after the carnage was over. One fire, one digging. Handy to have, as I lack ranged attacks. No, a bunch of other wands are not enough.



These are the Slime Pits. They are filled with jellies, and many things that make jellies look like an absolute joke, making Resist Corrosion a necessity. It's also got a very nasty boss, and loot that can't be accessed without a disintegration wand or controlled teleports. We don't go to slimepitholm.

Well, not if I have any choice in the matter. I might not.



As you can see, I got trapped in this room while escaping from a komodo dragon. A less insane ingenious adventurer might simply rest, open the door and face the lizard. I know better.



Trust me, this is how wands of digging were meant to be used. And now, on ward, to freedom!



Oh. I see. Well. I guess I really should have expected that.



Level 13 ice elementalist ghost ohgodwhy.

FLEE.



Ah, the magic of random teleportation. It actually didn't try to kill me this time. How nice.



You know what? Enough of this nerve-wrecking craziness. I've gathered enough levels, I'm off to the Orc Mines. This place can wait.

Some of you might say that I decided on this because of the ghost. Lies and slander, I tell you.



...This is going to be so much fun. I can tell already.


As for today's minor vote, should I buy that potion of mutation at some later point? I'd honestly advise against it, but it's your call.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Of course you should! Mutations are always fun!