Vs Play: Dungeons of Dredmor!

[Wookieetank]

1. Tinkering
2. Berzerker
3. Big Game Hunter

Fer serious. What are the rest of you thinking???

I was thinking Fun, and or the eviluz.

[The Succubus]

Right, digglers and digglessi, voting closes tonight and then the dice rolling and screams of agonized death shall begin!

[Archonic Energy]

Vampirism
Tourist
Killer Vegan

oh. i'm not playing. I just want to see if anyone can get down to level 3 before they die.

[Corlindale]

Warlockery
Alchemy
Bankster

[kerplunksploosh]

Maths is hard, Succubus, and I can't count. What are the 3 winning skills? Ready to get this party started!

My randoms are (in order of priority): 29, 9, 18, 48, 36, 14, 25, which would be Assassin, Unarmed, Mathemagic, and Werediggling (damn!), with Big Game Hunter, Master of Arms, and Blood Magic as my backups, in that order. It's not e-verified or whatever, but why cheat.

[Wookieetank]

By my count:

Top Votes:
Perception (4)
Psionics (4)

Tied for 3rd:
Blood Magic (3)
Burglary (3)
Smithing (3)


My thought is to take all five and then 2 of your own choice. Unless we want a round of sudden death voting to pick the 3rd.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Awaiting judgement on the "First three" skills, but I rolled my 1d39 four times on invisible castle and got
1, 8, 11, 28

Sudden death Vote: Burglary

EDIT: Looking at the grid, that means I'm taking Swords, Unarmed, Berzerker Rage, and Assassination.

[The Succubus]

Sorry, sorry, I've been in Leicester being accosted by Playgrounders. >.>

A compromise:

Perception and psionics are a must. Take your pick of one from the third place, rest are randomed.

[Corlindale]

I chose Burglary for the third skill. Then I rolled my randoms and got Demonology, Egyptian Magic, Polearms and Archery.

Not too bad, and it gives me a good chance to actually survive level 1.

[Geno9999]

DLC?: Diggle Gods and Wizardlands.
Going Rogue
No Mods.

Picking Blood Magic as my third skill, and here are my rolls: 39, 51, 49, 41.
Okay... and now to see what that means...
I am a Killer Perceptive Tourist Psionic Blood Mage Lawyer Demonologist Vegan.
Well. This should be fun.

[Wookieetank]

Sorry, sorry, I've been in Leicester being accosted by Playgrounders. >.>

A compromise:

Perception and psionics are a must. Take your pick of one from the third place, rest are randomed.

No worries, just doing my part to keep the thread alive and movin.

I think I'll take Burglarly as my third skill, random bits to follow when I'm less busy.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Ran through my Level 1. Write-up to follow after I learn how to get photos from my hard drive up on here. Photobucket is giving me... issues.

[Corlindale]

I've had a pretty good run so far. Started by encountering Bee Arthur and Sigfried in the same room, which together almost got me enough xp for level 3 (and a nice spear which I'm still using). I took a gamble and decided to max out Burglary first thing, instead of the more offensive stuff. I crossed my fingers that Brax would have something worth stealing on level 1 to reward me.

I had fairly good luck with Brax, in fact. Managed to steal pretty much everything worthwhile from his store (conveniently located near a staircase) - the highlight being a scaly hauberk of the fish, which brought my AA up to 7+ and thus made me outright immune to a good amount of early foes. Very nice! I sold most of the other stuff, though.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Here we go!

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Gather 'round, children, and ye shall hear
The Tale of Eyebrowsia, our most recent Virgin Sacrifice to the Great and Terrible Lord Dredmor!

Eyebrowsia was a talented thief, and she cold-heartedly stole from the vending machines situated just inside Dredmor's dungeon.
As a matter of fact, here is a short list of her abilities:

As cursed is she is to be so unfortunate to have those large, bushy eyebrows which led to her current situation, to say nothing of her temper, she was blessed enough to have performed her daily exultations to Krong.

Had we known she would cavort with salesdemons such as the malicious Brax, we would have never locked her up down here.

(Seriously, guys, by this point I had run into, like, three monsters.)
Soon, she learned that she had latent psionic abilities and came to rely upon them early on in her dungeon ritual. They kept her alive.

Incosequentia smiled upon her, and rewarded the Unfortunate Eyebrowsia upon the successful completion of a Quest to slaughter some of Dredmor's armies (Probably the second reason we keep up with these sacrifices)

Oh. Look. The last Wizard we threw down here left his keys behind. How *snigger* nice of him.

For a moment, we thought the ritual had drawn to a close: Eyebrowsia stood upon the brink of death: she survived thanks to her insatiable desire for cheese and rotten steak.

She was doing so well before she taunted the Vile Unfriendly AI.

Not so bad afterwards, either, we guess.

This is her status as she delved deeper on her self-imposed quest to Vanquish the Great, Mighty, Terrible, and Unvaquishable Lord Dredmor:

[Wookieetank]

So thanks to a long day at work and a bottle of wine (pints are an amazing form of measurement... ) I'm too lazy, not caring to find the link to the web page for random numbers. So! I will use Dredmor's RNG and drop the last three to replace with the three from this forum. The results are:

Perception
Psionics
Burglary
Staves
Archeology
Smithing
Big game hunter

So here goes nothing. Updates to follow, either tonight or tomorrow afternoon.

Edit: Updates!:

Thus the chronicles of LemmingMan went as follows:

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First room yields a Dredmor Statue and a diggle, hurray for an easy first level up. Since I haven't done it before, and it seems to be all the rage, I'll be gunning straight down the psionics tree.

Couple of rooms later, a BMD! Hurray for easy zorkmids

Several rooms and monters beaten with a stick later crystal healing is now at my disposal. I'm not sure if this stuff heals the nasties down here, science to follow.

One close encounter with a zombie followed by a "strategic retreat" and consumption of crystals that heal, LemmingMan finds himself still able to explore the Dungeon of the dreaded Dredmor.

And Braxx is a #(!@*#&% as usual. He taunts me and my staves skill by having a Mace of Windu in his selection on the first floor. Other than the aforementioned Mace that shall not be named, Brax had nothing of intrest to me other than his services of emptying my inventory and filling my coin purse.

I'm not quite sure how a common cave raven, which has been magically put to sleep no less, is able to dodge my attacks while in said unconsious state. Wonders never cease.

After another strategic withdrawl (from a sickly diggle and a trap...which never actually happened, I swear!) and more consumption of the tasty rocks that heal, LemmingMan's adventures continue.

An unkonw number of traps disarmed later and LemmingMan now has the power, the power to move y... He can Staple Nerves, what? I think I'll just go with it, and not think too hard about this.

LemmingMan was always fond of fire and the playing with it as a child, now he can make fire, WITH HIS MIND! BWA HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. In other news, LemmingMan is now regularly seeing a psychologist, pendeding release from the authorities...

Fun fact, crows can dodge your attacks while sleeping, but they seem unable to avoid being set on fire, with LemmingMan's MIND!

It seems that LemmingMan has managed to survive Floor 1. Now an alchoholic, and a healing crystal junky, who has many meetings in his future, LemmingMan prepares himself for the floor below.

[Castaras]

Will do this either wednesday afternoon or Saturday. All DLC and such.


1d51=3, 1d51=36, 1d51=5, 1d51=46

This means my skills are:

Psionics
Perception
Burglary
Axes
Polearms
Big Game Hunter
Bankster

edit: screw that, was bored and did it just now.

Meet the Muffinlord.

I think I pulled the right lever here... You diggles can't get me, nya nya nya!

Ooo, a level. Thanks Raven.

Nothing could possibly go wrong when I drink this.

Don't have a screenshot of it, but I leveled some more and the fountain gave me dark energies and extra damage.

I think I'll pass on stepping on the target symbol.

...Parlay?

Well damn.

And thus ends the adventure of the Muffinlord at the hand of some diggles.

5224 score, level 1 dungeon, level 4 character. Have fun folks.

[kerplunksploosh]

Jedidiah Brain has answered the call to defeat Dredmor!
(unarmed, mathemagic, psionics, perception, assassination, smithing, and werediggling) on Rogue, No Time To Grind, All DLC!

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Ole Jed tiptoes into the dungeon, ever so careful to not trip any traps. After a time, he gets bored of stealth, and smashes a statue to our favorite evil lich, Dredmor, and then charges into a small diggle nursery. Full of rage, Jed takes a pinch of his Werediggle Spit Tobaccky, and defeats his first set of monsters. He levels up, taking Perception 2, and then returns to his original form. He can see clearly now what traps lay ahead on his perilous journey...

No more than a room after that, than Ole Jed sees the legendary Bee Arthur, guarding some mysterious flail. Jed Brain embraces the curse of the Werediggle again, and deftly assassinates her using said guarded flail - looks like Jedidiah Brain is forsaking his Unarmed training in favor of really big sticks. Level up! Not only can Jed see the traps before him, with Perception3 he can now undo the snares--thanks in no small part to his hillbilly heritage.

More chaos ensues as Jed shifts his shape to that of Dredmor's main minion, the Diggle, dispatching foes without a care. He grows yet more powerful, but does not feed the Diggle hunger- rather, he reflects on Blacksmithing twice as he grows in power, and how it somehow helps him pick apart traps, the great bane of all adventurers. Siegfriend and Toady are aware of his trickery, but these champions too are defeated in epic single combat. He notes a Mysterious Portal on this level, but Ole Jed was never much into them mystery stories. He much preferred his dogeared bodice-ripper novels.

FLOOR ONE CLEARED! (for now)

If people want pictures, I suppose I could make a photobucket account. Not sure where I'm going with this character - I think I'm going to ignore werediggling and Unarmed altogether and just smith me some katanas. I've already got a steel sword, though it doesn't outshine the enchanted flail that Bee Arthur guarded. [5 blunt, 3 pierce, 1 Health Regen]

[Geno9999]

Wait, we were supposed to do this in No Time to Grind?! I knew I was forgetting something! And I managed to survive the first floor too!

Should I post it/keep going anyway or start again with NTTG?

[Corlindale]

Wait, we were supposed to do this in No Time to Grind?! I knew I was forgetting something! And I managed to survive the first floor too!

Should I post it/keep going anyway or start again with NTTG?

I'd say keep going. The main reason for choosing NTTG, as far as I recall, was that people might not have the time to do a full run for this VS Play. And it's only a fairly slight advantage in any case.


Hal the Halberdier has ventured further down the dungeon, trying out level 2 after his first succesful burglary at level 1.
Thanks to a pretty good weapon Hal handles the opposition quite well - and some incredible item luck only helps matters along. He finds an artifact ring with lots of cool bonuses in a fountain, including +3 existential damage - as well as a belt of the champion. He decides to put points into his Polearm skill and his melee damage keeps going up.

He discovers another Brax store, but unfortunately it's situated impractically for stealing. Hal sadly has to swallow his pride and *sigh* buy something from him (but with money mostly earned from selling stuff he has stolen, so maybe it's not all bad). He thus picks up a Cybercone for even more damage (will come in handy at level 3) as well as pair of Parachute Pants to bring his dodge rate up around 30.

Disappointingly, there doesn't appear to be a zoo on level 2. Still, Hal is optimistic about his further adventures in the dungeon, if a little disappointed that he didn't get to steal a hilariously overpowered artifact on this level either.

[kerplunksploosh]

Jedidiah Brain's Zany Adventures on Floor 2!

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After gliding through floor 1 mercilessly, Jed hops down the stairs full of pith and vigor. He roams around, finding yet another Toady for great justice (and XP!), and improves his smithing yet again. He now wields a fine steel sword, custom-made for chopping Zombys... zombies? He finds an enchanted iron cuirass on a little island, and MANY MANY applications of Froda's Random Jump later (and 2 empty bottles of pear wine), he claims it as his own. The Baron and other monsters give him another level, and he is almost now a master blacksmith.

He opens a door, and finds a monster zoo. No biggie--everything else has fallen to his custom-built Fine Steel Sword, and he laughs at the assortment of electroblobbies, zombys, reapers, wights, and whatnot. Merely 56 of 'em... (a full retreat, 2 Infernal potions, 2 Dire empowerment potions, and 3 Grilled cheese sandwiches later...) He defeats the zoo, though the room is not empty - some invisible force keeps resurrecting foes and gassing him. The Great Pumpkinn is at work, but Jed manages to escape and seal him in the zoo. He spends all his hard-ernt Zorkmids at a FUD machine to replenish his larder, fashions a U-Craft-It station, and sees no more iron nor steel. He also finds a Zomby zoo, and unleashes it, becoming a master blacksmith with nothing to craft. However, his training has largely made his Werediggle form useless...

Inconsequentia seeks a horde of monsters defeated on floor 2, and the Great Pumpkinn is still on the prowl, but our now-humbled Jedidiah Brain escapes to Floor 3. He *will* wrap up these loose ends, mark his words...

I'm going to die on floor 3. I know it.

[Wookieetank]

...stuff...
I'm going to die on floor 3. I know it.

Or back on floor 2 for irony's sake

More Misadventures of LemmingMan:

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LemmingMan descends into the depths of floor 2 dreding his inevitable meeting with the oft whispered of monster zoo.
Three rooms later LemmingMan has mastered the arts of the mind and a mysterious sign appears in the heavens staying "Stay out of my mind" and that LemmingMan had earned a trophy. Despited being confused by this celestial display, LemmingMan continues on, looking for a monster to befriend with his newfound power.

Upon stumbling on the much dredded monster zoo, LemmingMan promptly shuts the door and contemplates what he may have done in his life to deserve this turn of events. Seeing as there is no time like the present, LemmingMan takes a deep breath and re-opens the zoo, hoping his newfound power of befriendment will help him survive this current ordeal.
After much running, screaming, no small ammount of weeping in corners, crystal munching and great consumption of alcohol, LemmingMan meets his doom in the monster zoo.

Whelp, that was fun.

[kerplunksploosh]

Sad times for Jedidiah Brain, my friends... Floor 3 and part of Floor 4 below.

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Floor 3 is actually quite boring. I level up twice, and upgrade Psionics once and Mathemagic once, so I now have a ranged, albeit magical attack (still no crossbow!) and something to push those little artifacts on the single-tile islands my way. I also find some coal, and make the last bit of steel for my Katana. Inconsequentia gives me 2 quests, one that involves an EVIL rutabaga, and I flee in terror to floor 4, as Floor 3 is mostly done, and I'm still not brave enough to take on the Great Pumpkinn nor the Mysterious Dimension from earlier floors.

Floor 4 starts out on a very bad note. There are Pumpkinns, mustache golems, and a thrusty right next to me. I manage to kill a few, and then notice __ BRINGS THE THRUSTY BACK TO LIFE!!! The Great Pumpkinn followed me here! I step on a teleporter, lick my wounds as best as my poor and hungry hillbilly can - still no crystals. I find a room with 3 (!) statues to defile, but not enough to level... but the next Monster Zoo I open will do the trick!

RIP Jedidiah Brain, The Adventurer!
"He Danced Like a Duke" - truer words never spoken
Killed by Zanjaffro the Morning's Rivers - that bastard!
on Level 4. Score: 89640

If I killed him, I woulda levelled up. And I was sitting on a Potion of Healing I perceptively looted :(

[tyckspoon]

Little bit late, but better late than never, eh?

Perception, Psionics, Smithing (because Psi + Blood Magic would be far, far too easy-mode), and leaving the rest up to Dredmor's native RNG: (It's gonna make me be a Killer Vegan Vampire, just watch..)

...Daggers, Maces, Staves, Magic Training. Oh dear. This.. this is going to test my claim that Psionics is in fact all I need quite severely. Unto the breach for Dilettante, the Indecisive!

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In the very first room, I discover a stack of Poison Flasks! This AoE throwable will quite likely save my life once or twice, especially if the single door out of this first room leads to Batty Country..

Thankfully, it doesn't. It leads to That Big Open Room With The Water And All The Feature Spawns, which contains several nice things- a Helm of Threepwood gives me a bit more armor, a Gelatinous Wand gives me another potent swarm-clearing effect for the first few dungeon floors, and a Statue of Dredmor completes my first level without having to deal with too many monsters.. Shove is taken, because while the RNG has decreed I must be unoptimized, I'm not *crazy.*

In the next room I encounter Bee Arthur. Shove prevents her from doing anything to me until she is damaged enough to kill with one more hit. Her XP and a nearby locked door provide enough XP for Dilettante's 3rd level. Smithing is advanced in the hopes that Perception will begin finding some Steel, or at least hitting some decent amount of Iron or Hematite in the dungeon.

The floor proceeds with little of note for a while. Dilettante finds a Spear- even without a relevant weapon skill this does significantly more damage than any of his starting gear- and uses his Smithing skills to apply some extra spikiness to it. An Uberchest provides a pair of Adventuring Gloves enchanted with extra Armor. Spikes are also rapidly nailed to these (with 1 Armor and 1 Piercing Damage, these are depressingly likely to be the most useful gloves I will find for quite some time.) A Brax shop gives a chance to dump some extraneous vendor-trash and acquire a basic shield. (It is rapidly exchanged for a somewhat better shield found behind a destructible wall. ~500 Zorkmids wasted. -_- ) And then an Inconsequentia quest spawns this jolly fellow...

Zanpochooie the Harbinger of Fates. He's a Djinn. Djinns are pretty bad news- they're native to the 3rd floor, so they're really tough for this level, they hit with weird damage types so armor isn't much help, and they cast spells. Fortunately, I have Psionics and some lucky early item finds- sleep and a few acidballs courtesy of my Gelatinous Wand take care of him. My reward is some Leather Armor with bonus Piercing Resistance, which is pretty nice for non-metal armor. Further levels gained in these adventures were invested in Smithing plus one in Perception.

And that's it for Dilettante the Ineffective Weapons Master's first floor. I'm pretty confident about the second floor with Shove and some booze in my belt, but I'll need Perception to pay off and Lucky Find me some Steel Ingots pretty soon or I'll be feeling kinda dumb about rushing Smithing like this.. This is the first time I've actually launched a No Time To Grind game. Floors are *tiny*, I'm almost looking forward to the Monster Zoo just so I can mass-murder some more Lucky Find procs.

(I have screenshots but decided it was too much hassle to actually upload them anywhere. Yay, half-assed effort!)

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Bluh. My monitor died on me. It'll be a few days before I get my grubby mitts on a replacement so... Yeah, my run will be delayed a bit. Sorry folks.

[The Succubus]

I went with:

Psionics
Perception

Optional: Smithing

Rolls:

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3821090/">1d51=36, 1d51=9, 1d51=51, 1d51=1

Swords
Unarmed
Big Game Hunter
Tourist


....this is going to end horribly when I run it tomorrow. -.-

[tyckspoon]

Ok! Saving this thread from falling off the first page and continuing the ill-fated adventures of Dill the Four-Skilled!

When last we left Dill, he had completed Floor 1, put several points into Smithing, and has not yet found any significant amount of materials to Smith. Hopefully Floor 2 will be more generous. Or kill him, so I can roll somebody with less stupid skills.

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The first room Dill opens on Floor 2 contains a chunk of Bauxite and some Leather Boots. Useful, since Dill did not yet have shoes. The *second* room.. is a double-size Monster Zoo. Oh dear.

..well, actually, it's two separate single-room Monster Zoos stuck right next to each other, but the game reveals all the Zoo spaces when you open the door to one, so it's basically one Zoo. But it's one Zoo with a barrier separating the halves, which means after I drink half of my booze and eat all my cheese in the process of clearing the first half, I can *run the heck away* and search for new supplies before tackling the second half. So goodbye, 1/2 Zoo, I'll be seeing you later!

..and the next door down is a dead-end with a Krong Anvil. Stupid tiny No Time To Grind layouts. Dill throws his Spear on there and Krong adds a point of Melee Power. Was hoping for a proc power, but every little bit helps. The other direction is more fruitful, and exploration of the floor proceeds. Dill encounters a Brax shop with a Steel Mace! Selling every non-essential item on hand allows him to afford it, giving him a better weapon and allowing him to make use of one his weapon skills. Not bad. Dill also finally Lucky Finds a Steel Ingot, which combined with his investment in Smithing allows upgrading said Steel Mace to a Fine Steel Mace, and a piece of Hematite provides enough Iron to upgrade his Leather Armor to a Studded Leather Coat. With better equipment and a few more levels (Smithing, another point in Perception, and Crystal Healing from Psionics) under his belt, Dill is much more confident of his chances on the second half of this Zoo.

It goes much better this time. Careful use of a chokepoint, Shove, magic health crystals, and a reasonable amount of booze consumption clears the second room of the Zoo in good time and in good health, and Dill acquires a decent reward- a shield artifacted with Burl and a point of Acid damage... and that pretty much completes Floor 2!

I am.. cautiously optimistic for Dill's career. 2 Floors completed and starting to come into some decent gear, backed up by the ludicrous utility and cheap casting costs of the Psionics skill. I might even invest a point in Maces, now that I have a decent one that will probably get used for the next couple of floors.. especially if I can find the items to throw an Encrust or two on there.

Dill Status Report:
Helm of Threepwood, Artifact Battered Kite Shield, Fine Steel Mace, Leather Boots, Artifact + Encrusted Adventuring Gloves. Couple of irrelevant rings.
Level 4 Blacksmithing (Fine Steel weapons) Level 3 Perception (sight range, trap sense, Luckier Find), Level 4 Psionics (up to Nerve Staple.)

Join me next time I remember I'm doing this for Floor 3, where Dill will get blasted to death by Magic Aethereal Missiles!

[Wookieetank]

Just out of curiosity, who is still alive and in the competition?

[Thanatos 51-50]

Still alive, still here.
Just focusing down on my final Final right now.

[Geno9999]

I'm still in, I just need to stop procrastinating and post my results of the first level. Fortunately, I finished my finals so I can focus on other stuff now.

[Wookieetank]

Good luck to those with Finals!