Vs Play: Dungeons of Dredmor!

[Corlindale]

Nice! I'll get started tomorrow, I'll have time then. I think I have a build in the works.

[Miscast_Mage]

Hmm, I've got an idea for a build which I'd like to do, but it might not be relevant enough to the theme, so I'll have a back-up build(absolutely relevant, but not nearly as much fun), just in case. I'll probably get them done tonight.

[Wookieetank]

Alright then, here we have Teslena, who has the following skills:

Demonologist - Summon/becoming a demon from another reality just screams abusing physics horribly.
Werediggle Curse - Similar to the above, particularly with the whole conservation of mass being ignored...
Ley Walker - Following arcane lines of energy that according to physics don't exist.
Psionics - Because mind powers just shouldn't/don't work that way.
Artful Dodge - stepping in and out of reality just to dodge attacks, if there's a better way to break physics for something simple, I've yet to come up with what it could be.
Blood Magic - syphoning engery from an enemy's blood? how is that even supposed to work?
Fleshsmithing - Might as well make biology and physics cry at the same time. Seemed like the thing to do at the time.

I tried to stay away from a more traditional/Varsuvius mage build with this go, so hurry for demons and transforming. Should make for an interesting run.

[Corlindale]

Looks nice, wookietank - and I like that it's almost entirely different from what I'm running with.

Without further ado, here's the build for Cody the Physics-defying wizard. (I decided right away that I wanted to opt for a pure wizard build to make physics cry all the more, though I'm certainly going to curse my squishiness eventually):

Mathemagic
Warlockery (These two are the main skills, chosen because they violate the rules of physics most directly in that one lets me ignore limits of space (mathemagic's teleportation), while the other eventually lets me stop time.

Viking Wizardry
Astrology (for more traditional physics-defying action, bending the powers of the cosmos and the elements to my will)

Ley Walker
Blood Magic (because I'll need a TON of mana to support my continous maltreatment of the laws of physics).

Tourist (because I just can't play without trap sight/affinity, especially not with a squishy mage. Also defies physics a bit, especially with the power to eat anything regardless of size or mass, and the final teleportation skill.)

The plan is to play him like a gish early on, and hopefully transition into a more traditional mage-build once the enemies start hitting really hard. Fingers crossed

[Cogwheel]

You know what, I'm going to have to drop out. Too much work. Maybe I'll re-enter once I can find some time for other activities, like breathing. Best of luck to the remaining competitors, and consider this speed bump removed.

[The Succubus]

Awww. I was hoping to see the legendary Cogwheel in action.

To our audience, I'm going to give you 24 hours. First person to post gets Cogwheel's spot for this run, otherwise I'm going to pinch it myself. =3

[Cogwheel]

Awww. I was hoping to see the legendary Cogwheel in action.

Ow ow ow. My arm. Please stop twisting it before it snaps off.

Edit:

YE BUILD

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Tinkering/Alchemy/Rogue Scientist: These are basically entire fields of knowledge devoted to making physics cry, sometimes with physics. I hope it's fairly obvious.

Blood Magic. As mentioned elsewhere, you draw power in a way that should not be physically possible, to power further feats of sheer implausibility. Sounds good to me!

Fleshsmithing! Because hey, more science that ruins basically every law of nature in existence. I'd be amenable to switching this out for Psionics if anyone wants, though, since that's also pseudo-science-y and does awful things to reality. Sabotage me if you like.

Promethean Magic! What's that? Thermodynamics? Conservation of energy? Ah. Ha. Ha. That's funny, physics. You're funny.

Y'know, this is looking distressingly practical. We simply can't have that. And I have one last skill with which to set it right.

Paranormal Investigator. You're up.


Hey, sometimes I want to throw physics a bone. I can be self-aware and deeply skeptical of my horrible crimes against science, can't I?

Also, it would be funny.

[Thanatos 51-50]

I only have the free DLC, would it be allowable for me to put my name on ye aulde liste o' Adventurers to die?

[Miscast_Mage]

Aw, I'm sorry to hear that, Cog. I was looking forward to seeing which one of us would get diggle'd in the more hilarious way.

Yay Cog! Let us diggle onwards!

I think I've got my character just about ready:

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Ladies and Diggles, say hello to Mr. Burton Bolter!

So Mr. Burton, tell us a little bit about yourself! What skills are going to help keep you alive(not for long, am I right, folks?) in the horrifying, deadly, squicky-icky... Dungeons of Dredmor!

Well, lemme show you something; see this here? What do you see? Looks some yummy cheese, right?



Look again, Diggle-stink! It's a bolt! A bolty-bolt!



And what's this? A diggle?



Look at it, it's a bolt, you batty-bewilderer!



And you'd think this right here is an ingot, yeah?



You bet your jiggle-diggle it's an ingot! An ingot we're gonna turn into bolts!



I've got bolts! More bolts than there are bolts! Bolts within bolts that have bolts with bolt-backup bolts! But those don't have back-up bolts because that would be silly. Skill number one? Archery!

But where do I get these bolts? I find 'em. The bolts inside those bolts that have bolts inside those bolts ? I MAKE 'EM! Got an ingot? Look again, it's a thousand bolts! Skill number two? Tinkering!

Funny thing about bolts though; learning how to punch(or kick) somehow makes 'em hit harder! That's right, ya batty-paddlers; kicking harder means shooting bolts harder. That confusing? Wait 'till ya see me shoot with my hands full of stuff! Don't know how it works? Neither do I! Skill number three? Unarmed!

But folks, not all bolts are fired from a crossbow; some are gifted enough to fire mind bolts! Is like bolts, but from mind! Is bolt, but not-bolt! Is not not-bolt? Not-bolt! Skill number four? Psionics!

So bolts get us into trouble, but do they get us out? Of course they do! But is unfair on bolt to expect it to do everything. It deserves a rest every once in a while. And a pay-raise. Is dangerous job, being a bolt! Besides, dodge hit from monster, and teleport? Is fun! Skill number five? Artful Dodger!


What good are bolts without being able to spot where bolt should go, though? A bolt denied a never-ending flight of glory is sad bolt indeed! We fix! We give bolt long time to fly! Somehow get eye-lazers too! Is like bolt, but lazer! From eyes! Skill number six? Perception!

Have many bolts, but sometimes bolts run out, and zorkmids dry up; woe is us, when no bolts or money(for more bolts!)! So glad that when this be happening, shops and vending machines... er... "donate" free bolts, right into my inventory! Is good! Skill number seven? Burglary!

Very good at counting bolts, too; one bolt plus one bolt equals MANY BOLTS! Is good at, yes? Can't always remember how many bolts when they... "get generously donated". Can stop taking "donations" and learn how to count bolts; how many bolts? ALL OF THE BOLTS! So folks, do I forget Burglary!, and instead learn how to count many many bolts with Mathemagics!? (Think prefer having many bolts and not knowing how many though, than counting well but having little bolts.)

So yeah, I would prefer to have burglary, but if people say it's not close enough with the theme, then I'll swap it out for mathemagics, though I am a bit loathe to do so.

Also, playing Dredmor through Steam, and it's strange; I can't access Steam functions, including the steam screenshot thingy; this means I have to use the normal(*cough* plebian *cough*) way of getting screenshots. Any way to fix this? No bother if I can't, it would just make things a bit more convenient.

Also also, the dialect-in-which-I-have-no-diggling-clue-what-I'm-doing; it's not too much, is it?

[Cogwheel]

It's not too much at all.

Maybe grab Kioku, it's freeware and pretty good. In Japanese, but hey.

[Wookieetank]

You're welcome to use buglary far as I'm concerned. You could argue that the lock-up skill makes physics weep due to mysteriously immobilizing enemies. Its seems about the same ammount of stretch needed for tourist, which really isn't that much.

[Corlindale]

Burglary is totally fine. It has teleportation AND invisibility - both iconic, physics-defying powers. In any case I think it's alright to have a support skill that doesn't necessarily fit the theme perfectly, as long as the build as a whole does.

[The Succubus]

I only have the free DLC, would it be allowable for me to put my name on ye aulde liste o' Adventurers to die?

Sure, I'll add you on the list. Not sure how we'll deal with the whole DLC thing but we'll set fire to that bridge when we come to it.

[Cogwheel]

I'll get my post up in the next 24 hours. Bear with me, please.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Sure, I'll add you on the list. Not sure how we'll deal with the whole DLC thing but we'll set fire to that bridge when we come to it.

I just booted up the game for the first time in forever and...
I have the Pocket Dimension? So that must means I have the Wizardlands DLC or something? I don't remember buying it...

[Corlindale]

Allright, with everyone's build up and running, let's get this show on the road!

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Cody the wizard had heard of the glory and riches awaiting those who ventured into the dungeons of dredmor (but curiously had never heard of anyone actually getting out of there alive). Not being the brightest of wizards, he decided to try his luck - armed with little but a rusty old dagger and a camera:



With a hp pool of a mere 19 and a trap sight of 1, his first steps into the dungeon are careful indeed. While Cody doesn't know any offensive spells just yet, he is pretty good at channeling powerful arcane energies into his weapon, so the regular enemies are disposed of rather easily and he soon reaches level 2:



The first skill chosen is the Mana Maille, since he figures it will dramatically increase his ability withstand damage from the various creatures and traps infesting the dungeon. He doesn't have much need of it at level 1, though, as he continues to 1-shot most enemies. He encounters Bee Arthur and swiftly destroys him, gaining both a powerful spear and yet another level. This time he goes for See the Sights, as he is getting a little tired of tip-toeing around the dungeon floor at a snail's pace, looking for traps.

Level 4 is soon reached, and Cody faces a difficult decision: Which magic skill to focus on first? Warlockery promises more melee prowess, but doesn't have many ranged or area attacks. Mathemagic has powerful mobility and single-target skills, but they are expensive to use early game, and still no reliable area attack. Viking Wizardry strikes a nice balance between melee and ranged powers, but the good stuff seems to come a bit late in the tree.

Cody ends up going for Astrology, since it offers both crowd control, offensive and defensive buffs, as well as a boost to his insignificant health pool. And the final spell promises to be handy for those monster "zoos" he has heard so much about.

Feeling brave, Cody decides to take a couple of Inconsequentia Quest. The first goes smoothly, but the second leads to this:



A named mob from the depths of dungeon level 3! Cody isn't feeling brave enough to tackle this kind of adversary head-on just yet, so he opts for kiting him using his newly learned Solar Inscription skill combined with Froda's Jump Discontinuity. It takes a while, but the evil clone goes down!
TIme for the third and final quest:



What are all these floor 3 enemies doing here?! This time, Cody decides that enough is enough. He grabs something called a "Naarwalwand" which he picked up in an earlier room, and waves it at the robot. It is promptly struck by lightning and destroyed. Well, that was easy!

Of course, all 3 rewards turn out to be crap. Cody is not discouraged, though, and having reached his 5th level he feels ready to venture deeper into the dungeon:




To be continued...

[Science Officer]

For screen shots, you could just run dredmor in windowed mode, and use PrintScrn or Alt + PrintScrn and then paste into MSPaint.

Anyways, good luck all.

[Corlindale]

Hmm, seems like only some of my images are working - or am I the only one having this issue?

Anyway, I'm quite satisfied with my floor 1 run. Cody was much less squishy than expected, and I had pretty decent item luck overall. And my fears of dying from a huge group of mobs at the first door were fortunately averted.

[Deme]

Hmm, seems like only some of my images are working - or am I the only one having this issue?

Anyway, I'm quite satisfied with my floor 1 run. Cody was much less squishy than expected, and I had pretty decent item luck overall. And my fears of dying from a huge group of mobs at the first door were fortunately averted.

I can't get any of them to work.

[Wookieetank]

The Adventures of Teslena, in which nothing of note really happens:

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Well that was an adventerous start. First room 2 diggles, no biggie, Teslena can handle that. Second room, Siegfried and Bee Arthur!! Siegfried falls to werediggle form and Bee arthur takes Narcosomatic Induction to the face, giving Teslena the chance to run away and put a couple of doors between herself and certain doom.

One room and a diggle later, level 2 is reached in which Teslena takes a level in demonology. The dark side is stong in this one.

Now that Teslena has some corpses at her disposal, thanks to her days studying fleshsmithing she how has 2 zombies minions to soak up some damage.

Next up we have several rooms where Teslena stands around and watches her zombies punch things in the head.

Due to her genious plan of hopping on a teleporter, Teslena finds herself on the far side of the dungeon from her zombies, but in a room full of loots and 2 dredmor statues. Victory tastes like many different cheeses and xp for Teslena this day.

Thanks to heroic vandalisim Teslena reaches level 3 and takes yet another level of demonology for the greatly coveted Celestial Circle Spell.

Finding herself short of zombies, and just run out of were diggleness, and faced with a Bee Amazon, a tatical retreat was made through the teleporter.

with a complement of fresh zombies, Teslena is determined to take on the dreded Bee Arthur. While standing in a Celestial Cirel and poking the Bee Arthur with a knife while her zombies flail madly at it, victory is eventually reached.

Finally finding some "better" (i.e. any at all) equipment, Teslena fills out her wardrobe with a traffic cone (which is apparently an artifact), gladiator sandals, a small crossbow, and a ring of ash. While not quite at the level of gear of being ready for anything, Teslena feels much more confidant about her survival chances nonetheless.

After browsing through Brax's shop, Teslena picks up a refurbished staff, the better with which to makes corpses for reanimating.

Several rooms and a number of diggles later Teslena finds herself with yet another level, which she uses to improve her knowledge of fleshsmithing, due to how useful the zombies have been to her so far.

One and a half Inconsequensia quests and a unseen trap later, and Teslena finds herself reaquinting herself with her ancesters.

Here Rests Teslena The Adventurer, "The Opera of Bane" Killed by an Evil Magic potato on Level 1, with a score of 5688.

[Cogwheel]

Well, here we go.

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Step one: Grudgingly enable No Time To Grind.

Then pick out my skills - once again, Tinkering, Alchemy, Rogue Scientist, Promethean Magic, Fleshsmithing, Blood Magic and Paranormal Investigator - and get cracking. In the finest tradition of roguelike characters and pessimism in general, he shall be named Casualty.

Picked up a wooden shield in the starting room. Auspicious start.

Krong anvil found, then ignored. I have nothing useful to put on it.



At some point I pick up a Zomby. Soon it will be worthless. For now? Death incarnate. I'm alright with that.

Eventually it dies so I reanimate the zomby into a zomby. It doesn't have to make sense, it really doesn't.



Serendipity doesn't begin to cover it. Now I can instagib things with waves of sound.

Lutefisk statue encountered. As if I have any lutefisk. And then another Krong altar, ignored for similar reasons as the last one.



Two quests! Both rewards are terrible, worthless wooden swords.

On the bright side I can now make big acidsplosions. Well, I can as of shortly after this screenshot. Rogue Scientist is pretty good.



Explosive Rune does awful things early on, it really does.


Some time after, I am interrupted. By that, I mean one of my cats jumps up on the laptop, hitting the trackpad (or more precisely, the mouse buttons below it) and thus accidentally right-clicking, just as I have the cursor roughly at my feet.



And that's a wrap. My first floor 1 death in who knows how long.

[The Succubus]

"DEATH BY FELINE! Well folks, it looks like one of our most promising challengers was slain by a wild and untameable beast. Oh and protip for our remaining challengers - next time you might want to make sure your names aren't on the bundle of catnip you sent as a bribe.

And news just in folks - it appears Teslena has kicked the bucket as well! I've seen mayflies live longer than these two. Another pro-tip - Traps are bad and potatoes are not part of a healthy diet.

If we look to our other challengers, Cody discovers why Inconsequentia isn't a mainstream religion, and Burton has a deeply disturbing Bolt fetish. Good stuff."

[Reynard]

Meanwhile, further down in Dredmor's alternately-themed theme dungeon, the one who had come to be known as Inefficient Skills Man paces back and forth next to a door. From within come the sounds of a terrible slaughter, the sorts of sounds that would tremble even the most 'efficient' of 'builds'.

The noise dies down, and eventually stops. Inefficient Skills Man recklessly opens the doors to get at what he expects to find there: loot, dead things, Deathbot sitting at the edge of a small hole, trying to get at a creature on the other side but unable to process the 'move a bit to the left, then forwards' action that it would take to do so.

This is not remotely what he found. While Deathbot had indeed killed a few things, most of them had been the crowd of diggles that ISM had seen the first time the doors had been opened. The half-dozen not-Deathbot deathbots and assorted vegetables had not been so readily visible. Deathbot's shattered husk lay part of the way into the room. It seemed the dungeon had had enough of this particular robot's rampage.

ISM slammed the door shut and ran away, not crying at all, he swears. It seemed he would need to actually put effort in if he was going to get further in his hopeless dream of defeating Dredmore.

[Corlindale]

Unfazed by the death cries (and, at one point, the unmistakeable sound of a potato laughing evilly) resounding from neighbouring dungeons, Cody decides it is time to venture further into the depths.

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At first, level 2 is not that impressive. The loot is hardly better than on level 1 - and sometimes it seems he is finding nothing but cheese (yet no ingot cheese grinder yet...). He gains another level and picks up Syzygy, only to develop an alcohol problem - as in, there doesn't seem to be enough of it.

On his next level-up he promptly puts a point in Ley Walker - and mana issues are suddenly a thing of the past (for now...).

He proceeds to deal with the next part of the floor with relative ease, though there is a moment of tension when a boss Octo from a Dwarven Delivery room nearly kills him. Gets a decent weapon in another chest, so that's something.

Soon after, this happens:


The first monster zoo, and not one of the small ones either! Cody does a little tactical retreat to explore the rest of the floor before tackling the zoo. He gets a nice shield from inconsequentia and picks some other defensive gear from Brax - he also learns Celestial Aegis, another useful (and mana-hungry) buff.

Cody now decides it is time to deal with the Monster Zoo. Unfortunately he doesn't have any big offensive spells yet - but if the warrior types can tank a zoo one monster at a time, why not the wizards too? Fortunately there is a conveniently situated choke-point near the entrance to the zoo, so Cody manages to tank all of the monsters in relative safety - though it is a long and tedious process:


Ironically, dispatching the last remains of the monster zoo just about manages to get Cody to the next level, and thereby The Stars Aligned - a spell that would have been immensely helpful in dealing with the zoo. Oh well.
Also, the reward is total crap - but that is kind of expected at this point.

Still, a succesful run so far despite not finding much shiny new gear on level 2. And now that Cody has finally gained access to significant destructive magics, level 3 will hopefully go a bit smoother:

[Corlindale]

I also fixed the images in my first post, all should be working now.

When are we going to hear from the Bolt-man, I wonder...?

[Miscast_Mage]

When are we going to hear from the Bolt-man, I wonder...?

Unfortunately, today was not a good day Dredmoring.

I'll have mine up tomorrow though; apologies for the delay. I assure you this is not a tactic to delay you while Diggle Commandos commence with plan REEee!. Nope. Not at all. >_> <_< >_>

[Miscast_Mage]

Better late than never, right, me diggles?

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Rightio, m'bolties, Here we go!


A wizard key and a scribble? Is destiny! But destiny can wait 'till bolts are big and strong enough for unknown adventure.



DESTINY! SHE UNDERSTANDS AND IS KIND TO ME!


Did I pack lucky bolt today before coming to dungeon? Of course! Always pack lucky bolt!


Destiny, are you hitting on me? Am married man! Married to crossbow, of course, but still married!


Ah! Is challenge worthy of whole bolt family!


Also, was forgetting; am becoming good at seeing, so can appreciate beauty and elegance of bolts all the better!


Is good that become good at seeing; make reading easier for bedtime stories for little bolties. Must be careful not to tell scary stories, though, else poor bolts have nightmares!


Feh, no challenge worthy for bolt family! Not bother waking little bolties from mid-afternoon nap!


...Maybe is time to being wake bolts from nap.


Is new addition to big happy pointy family!


Must be going onwards, to find new family. And enemies! And show enemies big happy family; point first!

Also, just wondering; what's a good resolution to take screenshots? I kinda want to take advantage of my 7(as of yet) increased sight, and I have a 1680 x 1050 monitor, but if that causes inconvenience for readers...

[Flickerdart]

The size you have now is good for my monitor. Statistically, your readers are most likely to have a similar resolution as me - 1280 horizontal pixels is the most popular by far, followed by 1366.

[Corlindale]

Taking full advantage of his head start, Cody boldly ventures down into dungeon level 3 (MM - feel free to explore both level 2 and 3 today, if you have the time - then we're at equal advancement again):

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Level 3 starts out rather boring. Monsters are fairly easy and loot is sparse. Though Cody has learned The Stars Aligned, he finds himself without the means to cast it repeatedly, so he still resorts to melee attacks on most occasions, relying on a ton of hungry buffs to keep himself alive.

A definite plus on this run is that it turns out he's completely immune to Octos thanks to his buffs and passive resistances, so this most dreaded foe of level 3 holds no terrors for him.

The highlight of the level comes when Cody discovers this in an Uberchest:



Roughly twice as powerful as his former weapon, Cody accepts the gift gratefully - having good melee damage will be handy as long as he still can't afford to use spells all the time.

Soon after this, he finally reaches level 10. He ponders briefly which skill to upgrade - he considers Ley Walker to deal with his mana issues, but eventually decides that while having low mana regen can be annoying, not having a reliable teleport can be positively fatal. Mathemagic it is!


Then comes the monster zoo! Cody considers using the same tactics as on level 2, slowly and safely tanking mobs at a chokepoint. But that would be boring! Instead, let's use Froda's Jump Discontinuity and hope it lands us straight into the middle of everything, the better to use The Stars Aligned!



Turns out to be a great idea! Everything is obliterated by the celestial onslaught, even the boss Pumpkinn who doesn't manage to lay a hand on our brave hero:



Cody proceeds to find a lot of very nice stuff on the rest of the level, upgrading both armor and boots to gain much more AA. He even gathers enough cash to return to level 1 and buy the coveted Emerald Encrusted gold ring - even to bring his HP to quite a decent level for a pure wizard.


Cody prepares to head further down to dungeon level 4. Level 3 turned out to be very profitable - lots of upgrades to gear and very little real resistance from mobs:




Cody's only worry is that he is predominantly using warrior and rogue gear at the moment - soon, when enemies become too dangerous to approach, he will be forced to adopt a more traditional mage-strategy - but he doesn't have the gear to back it up just yet.

[Miscast_Mage]

Wel'p, this took longer than I would have liked it to...
Got through level 2 just fine, halfway through level 3; just a rushed post for today.

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Eye lasers are awesome. That is all.


Not much of interest; just vender trash and traps to collect, and monsters to kill exp to gain.


Eeee my first monster Zoo!


T'was fun, though for some reason I didn't get a reward afterwards; was it because there was probably one monster wandering off somewhere and I didn't technically finish the zoo, or was it because I went into my wizard dimension to grab a few things and that stops you from getting the reward?


Got three monsters here. Eye laser'd three times to compensate.


GREEDY LUTEFISK GOD! I'll have to come back to this later; I had lutefisk-cube'd nearly everything I could spare to no immediate result for this.


Onwards to level 3! And a monster zoo! Not much bother this time either; got the reward, a nifty pair of boots, I believe.

And that's about all of interest that's happened so far. I'll see about finishing level three and moving onto level four tonight.