Crawl 0.15: Terrifying, Ever-Gnashing Radulae

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crawl 0.15: Terrifying, Ever-Gnashing Radulae

HisMajestyBOB: Oct 21, 2010; College Slice

Read posted:

As part of my endless interest in generating arbitrary statistics with Sequell, here is a list of god abandonments before XL 10 that won the game and which god they ended up winning with. Credit to Sequell wizard, Kramin, for helping me puzzle out a bit of the query that I was stuck on.

92x Elyvilon - (19x Okawaru, 12x The Shining One, 10x Trog, 10x Zin, 7x Ashenzari, 6x Makhleb, 3x Vehumet, 3x Kikubaaqudgha, 3x Xom, 3x Nemelex Xobeh, 2x Cheibriados, 2x Fedhas, 2x Jiyva, 2x Sif Muna, 2x Qazlal, 2x Elyvilon, 2x Dithmenos, Lugonu, No God)
90x Zin - (16x Trog, 14x Okawaru, 11x The Shining One, 10x Elyvilon, 8x Makhleb, 6x Zin, 5x Jiyva, 4x Lugonu, 4x Ashenzari, 4x Vehumet, 3x Cheibriados, 3x Sif Muna, 2x Nemelex Xobeh)
74x Xom - (13x Trog, 9x Okawaru, 9x Jiyva, 5x Nemelex Xobeh, 5x Makhleb, 4x Zin, 4x Kikubaaqudgha, 4x Xom, 3x Ashenzari, 3x The Shining One, 3x Elyvilon, 2x Lugonu, 2x Sif Muna, Yredelemnul, Fedhas, Dithmenos, No God, Vehumet, Beogh, Cheibriados, Gozag)
49x The Shining One - (20x The Shining One, 10x Okawaru, 3x Trog, 3x Nemelex Xobeh, 2x Fedhas, 2x Zin, 2x Jiyva, 2x Ashenzari, Makhleb, Lugonu, Elyvilon, Cheibriados, Xom)
18x Yredelemnul - (5x Makhleb, 3x Kikubaaqudgha, 2x Trog, 2x Lugonu, Vehumet, Nemelex Xobeh, The Shining One, Okawaru, Zin, Yredelemnul), 11x Nemelex Xobeh (4x Jiyva, 2x Makhleb, 2x Trog, Nemelex Xobeh, Lugonu, Okawaru)
7x Ashenzari - (Okawaru, Xom, Lugonu, Sif Muna, Vehumet, Trog, The Shining One), 7x Lugonu (4x Makhleb, Sif Muna, No God, Trog)
6x Okawaru - (2x The Shining One, 2x Okawaru, Kikubaaqudgha, Makhleb)
6x Kikubaaqudgha - (4x Makhleb, Lugonu, Sif Muna)
4x Cheibriados - (2x Makhleb, Trog, Sif Muna)
4x Trog - (Zin, Nemelex Xobeh, Makhleb, Lugonu)
4x Sif Muna - (Trog, Kikubaaqudgha, Ashenzari, Okawaru)
3x Vehumet - (Trog, Lugonu, Okawaru)
Makhleb - (Lugonu)
Qazlal - (Fedhas)
Dithmenos - (Dithmenos)

This raises a lot of questions and is way more puzzling than I would have expected.
Why would someone go Sif Muna/Vehumet -> Trog?

I would have expected more Zin->TSO conversions. And I assume TSO->TSO and Zin->Zin conversions are to do something naughty, like eat purple or desperate cannibalism. Makhleb seems to be pretty popular god to convert to, too. "gently caress all these rules and strategy stuff, give me destruction and demons!"

# ? Sep 9, 2014 14:52

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 22:05

BigFactory: Sep 17, 2002

Angry Diplomat posted:

Did hellfire tossing get taken out at some point? I only ever saw that one a few times but I thought it was cool that you could gain the ability to chuck hellfire at people in exchange for a big chunk of HP.

I forgot about hellfire. I think I got that exactly once and it was totally underwhelming at the point in the game I was at. I think it was my last mutation.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 15:02

Inexplicable Humblebrag: Sep 20, 2003

Hell yeah

# ? Sep 9, 2014 15:14

Angry Diplomat: Nov 7, 2009; Winner of the TSR Memorial Award for Excellence In Grogging

HisMajestyBOB posted:

This raises a lot of questions and is way more puzzling than I would have expected.
Why would someone go Sif Muna/Vehumet -> Trog?

Some of them might be an unexpected change in build direction, like starting a blasty hybrid and then finding a ridiculously good antimagic randart weapon and thinking, "welp, hail Trog!!" and abandoning their caster god as soon as they felt safely able to do so.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 15:17

Prism: Dec 22, 2007; yospos

Heithinn Grasida posted:

I think this is a very elegant and simple solution. But, personally, I feel that Crawl overuses the "strong early, weak late" method of balancing abilities. It makes sense in light of the game's difficulty curve, but it's just not much fun for most people. A similar solution would be to make spiny a scales facet instead of a tier 2 mutation. That way it should both come in earlier and not screw you out of a more interesting tier 2 that actually has an impact on game play.

Since the scales facet is (otherwise) mostly defensive I would probably also give it a tiny bit of EV (either 0/1/2 or 1/2/3) if that happened. Kind of like Repulsion Field but with counter damage instead of permanent Repel Missiles.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 15:58

bisonbison: Jul 18, 2002

You could make spiny apply low damange + a slow movement debuff to some % of attackers, making them like manticore, and easier to kite.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 16:36

paranoid randroid: Mar 4, 2007

Petition to remove the exclamation point from the message "You found a web" while in the Spider Nest. Because oh, no poo poo?

# ? Sep 9, 2014 16:43

Inexplicable Humblebrag: Sep 20, 2003

Actually keep it, and replace "web" with one of an enormous array of synonyms.

A SILK LATTICE!
A WOVEN MESH!
A GOSSAMER TRAP!

# ? Sep 9, 2014 17:28

theysayheygreg: Oct 5, 2010; some rusty fish

scalded schlong posted:

A GOSSAMER TRAP!

The Spider Web is a Mimic!
The Spider Web Mimic hits You!!!

# ? Sep 9, 2014 17:35

PleasingFungus: Oct 10, 2012; idiot asshole bitch who should fuck off

Iron Leg posted:

The Spider Web is a Mimic!
The Spider Web Mimic hits You!!!

RIP trap mimics

# ? Sep 9, 2014 17:38

Prism: Dec 22, 2007; yospos

bisonbison posted:

You could make spiny apply low damange + a slow movement debuff to some % of attackers, making them like manticore, and easier to kite.

That would be okay too.

'Your spines hit the goblin. A spine breaks off in the goblin!'

# ? Sep 9, 2014 17:53

paranoid randroid: Mar 4, 2007

A chelicerate embuggerance.

e. I somehow completely forgot to do Mines until I already had 2 runes in my current run and the first thing I see when I step off the stairs is Joseph. Joe, buddy, guy, today is really not your day.
e2. oh gosh, Harold and Josephine as well. some days it just does not pay to be a early mid-game unique.

paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Sep 9, 2014

# ? Sep 9, 2014 18:11

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

Heithinn Grasida posted:

I think this is a very elegant and simple solution. But, personally, I feel that Crawl overuses the "strong early, weak late" method of balancing abilities. It makes sense in light of the game's difficulty curve, but it's just not much fun for most people. A similar solution would be to make spiny a scales facet instead of a tier 2 mutation. That way it should both come in earlier and not screw you out of a more interesting tier 2 that actually has an impact on game play.

I'd be alright with this if it also gave like +1,+2,+3 ac per tier. Not much but still feels good to get AC, especially in that slot.
For what it's worth since spiny was buffed(I don't remember exactly how, does it not get lowered by encumbrance at all anymore?) I definitely notice it quite a bit more, I used to hate it but now I can deal.

scalded schlong posted:

Hell yeah

perfection

# ? Sep 9, 2014 18:48

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

oh actually nevermind what I just said

bisonbison posted:

You could make spiny apply low damange + a slow movement debuff to some % of attackers, making them like manticore, and easier to kite.

if spiny had a chance to give attackers Barb status it would instantly become, like
the loving coolest

# ? Sep 9, 2014 18:50

legoman727: Mar 13, 2010; by exmarx

...So both of the zot 5 lungs have zot traps at the entrances. Thank god I have shatter on this guy.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 18:51

Jeffrey of YOSPOS: Dec 22, 2005; GET LOSE, YOU CAN'T COMPARE WITH MY POWERS

legoman727 posted:

...So both of the zot 5 lungs have zot traps at the entrances. Thank god I have shatter on this guy.

I had this, I walked through the zot trap. Shatter on Z:5 sounds scary but godspeed.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 18:52

LogicNinja: Jan 21, 2011; ...the blur blurs blurringly across the blurred blur in a blur of blurring blurriness that blurred...

Jeffrey posted:

I had this, I walked through the zot trap. Shatter on Z:5 sounds scary but godspeed.

You haste, make some noise, and run off. Works like a charm.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 19:10

pathetic little tramp: Dec 12, 2005; by Hillary Clinton's assassins; Fallen Rib

Back when traps & doors was a skill I never trained it because why the gently caress would you, but one game I ran into a zot trap that basically wrecked my poo poo when I was doing super well so I figured next time I'm going to train traps & doors to 27 dammit!

Zot traps are magical and as such unaffected by the traps & doors skill, lol gently caress you.

So glad they got rid of that stupid mechanic.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 19:22

kaschei: Oct 25, 2005

Don't shatter the narrow corridor, open up the edge of one of the lungs for a faster escape route.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 19:35

Sage Grimm: Feb 18, 2013; Let's go explorin' little dude!

It's going to take the same amount of time to traverse regardless, just more effort to blow a hole through a thicker wall (if it hasn't immovable walls making up its core).

# ? Sep 9, 2014 19:43

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

Heithinn Grasida posted:

I think people saying that demonspawn are tough do have a point.

They do! Most of the argument that occurred earlier happened because someone said that they're horrible, and also unfun. The first is wrong(they're tougher than the 'strong' species like minotaur, but not that tough-middle of the road, more or less), the second may be their own opinion but there's a reason Ds is one of the most popular species.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 19:43

kaschei: Oct 25, 2005

Sage Grimm posted:

It's going to take the same amount of time to traverse regardless, just more effort to blow a hole through a thicker wall (if it hasn't immovable walls making up its core).

The red path takes longer to traverse than the green path unless you break down the whole wall.

I think I just was vague about what I meant by the edge of the lungs.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 20:00

kaschei: Oct 25, 2005

Ds are the second strongest class for spamming Makhleb or Qazlal invocations. Only DD match them for invocations. I think anyone having trouble between temple and lair:8 could do a lot worse than go heavy into invocations as a Ds of Makhleb - I think this is stronger than most melee builds (not Gr or DD).

# ? Sep 9, 2014 20:01

Prism: Dec 22, 2007; yospos

kaschei posted:

Ds are the second strongest class for spamming Makhleb or Qazlal invocations. Only DD match them for invocations. I think anyone having trouble between temple and lair:8 could do a lot worse than go heavy into invocations as a Ds of Makhleb - I think this is stronger than most melee builds (not Gr or DD).

Does minor destruction do that much damage? I always thought it was - well, minor, equivalent to a level 1 or 2 spell, not something you can reasonably spam for victory to late Lair.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 20:08

kaschei: Oct 25, 2005

Minor destruction deals significant damage and eventually nothing resists it. It has great range and is cheap as free to cast (just a little HP that Makhleb will refund on kill). It will deal with 95% of enemies and you have enough piety to greater destruction the other 5%.

You can't lean on Qazlal the same way because there's a piety cost to his invocations but they're better for killing and do area damage.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 20:12

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

kaschei posted:

Ds are the second strongest class for spamming Makhleb or Qazlal invocations. Only DD match them for invocations. I think anyone having trouble between temple and lair:8 could do a lot worse than go heavy into invocations as a Ds of Makhleb - I think this is stronger than most melee builds (not Gr or DD).

Hill orcs also have +3 invo though

I also recommend ds makhleb-invo spamming it's fun as hell and pretty strong, I think the first I time I did it was actually on your suggestion
secret tech to deal with Greater Servants that arrive hostile: just summon another one :getin:

# ? Sep 9, 2014 20:15

Prism: Dec 22, 2007; yospos

kaschei posted:

Minor destruction deals significant damage and eventually nothing resists it. It has great range and is cheap as free to cast (just a little HP that Makhleb will refund on kill). It will deal with 95% of enemies and you have enough piety to greater destruction the other 5%.

You can't lean on Qazlal the same way because there's a piety cost to his invocations but they're better for killing and do area damage.

Isn't minor destruction's element random? I didn't think it turned unresistable at high Invo or anything. I did know it was free but I didn't realize the damage was more than like the 1d8 of magic dart, so that's good to know.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 20:16

kaschei: Oct 25, 2005

IronicDongz posted:

Hill orcs also have +3 invo though

Oh yeah, they're probably better than Demonspawn... until you get a good deal of mutations, which Makhleb lets you do pretty trivially

# ? Sep 9, 2014 20:16

Kekekela: Oct 28, 2004

Ciaphas posted:

Do any species, backgrounds, gods or whatever specifically support being an (almost) unstoppable walking wall? Deep Dwarf Fighter of Makhleb sounds like a good start on a completely newbie guess

DD of Ely (with amulet of faith, preferably)

# ? Sep 9, 2014 20:45

pathetic little tramp: Dec 12, 2005; by Hillary Clinton's assassins; Fallen Rib

Some guy named ratboiler got the Lorekeeper III banner:

http://dobrazupa.org/tournament/0.15/players/ratboiler.html

That means Lord of Darkness III is the only banner not achieved. I tried my damndest with a DDAK (and had to sacrifice about 10 permanent MP to recharge my wand of heal wounds over and over), but who can step up and win the game with only the options of Abyssal, Pan, and Hell runes?

# ? Sep 9, 2014 21:06

Speleothing: May 6, 2008; Spare batteries are pretty key.

DSNe with Nightstalker just got to the Temple. I'm leaning toward Mahkleb, but have found Ash, Dith, and Okawaru as well.

Any advice for a Nightstalker?

# ? Sep 9, 2014 21:33

kaschei: Oct 25, 2005

Speleothing posted:

DSNe with Nightstalker just got to the Temple. I'm leaning toward Mahkleb, but have found Ash, Dith, and Okawaru as well.

Any advice for a Nightstalker?

It's better than any tier 3 mutation so don't gently caress it up. It doesn't really determine a playstyle, having reduced LOS rocks for anyone other than Vehumet poison arrow slingers.

Any of those gods will work. Ash is more for hybrids, oka you will focus on melee for now and hybridize later, dith... is hard with Ds stealth apt, I honestly wouldn't recommend it. Makhleb works for anything.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 21:36

Angry Diplomat: Nov 7, 2009; Winner of the TSR Memorial Award for Excellence In Grogging

Ash is excellent if you can get your hands on Passwall and want to stab stuff. See monsters through walls, pop out of the wall next to them and stab them in the back.

Comedy option: go heavy into Hexes, get Darkness castable, carry a Lantern of Shadows in your off slot so you can choke your LOS down to a stupidly tiny circle full of spooky shadows.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 21:40

Ciaphas: Nov 20, 2005; > BEWARE, COWARD

SirSamVimes posted:

Always Eat The Purple.

Even never having gotten more than one rune I find this to be One Hundred Percent Truth.

I also play Demonspawn mostly now even as a hopeless newbie because I hate myself :v:

# ? Sep 9, 2014 21:43

Ugly John: Jul 18, 2009; [img]https://forums.somethingawful.com/attachment.php?postid=514899866[/img]

Colour posted:

http://pastebin.com/Ccuu2nRt

First tournament and 15-rune win. Also the first win for team Bad Crawl My Way! It's crazy how easy the game gets when you can reliably cast fire storm. This is the second game where I've never found a rMut amulet though, which is kind of lame since I cleared every branch, a treasure trove, a bazaar, and two zigs.

late to the party but congrats! I think you might have locked down first place in the team

Now if I can stop dying in Zot or to dumb mistakes on TRJ I might be able to join you.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 22:21

Kekekela: Oct 28, 2004

Microstreak (DDSu, TrFi )in progress after one of the most butt-puckering orb runs I've ever lived through. Had no haste, consumable or otherwise and ran into a pretty burly agony casting pan lord on the way out of the orb lung, then another baddy later on that swarmed me with golden eyes before i could get Clarity on, and several others that were various stages of almost offing me.

TrFi was unarmed/throwing with GDA and shield, figured I'd mention it since it seems to get asked semi-frequently if heavy armor/shields are viable on UC Trolls.

(also, dev note: the ruined doors behind the solo dracs in evilmike_zot_entry_castle seem kind of pointless)

Kekekela fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Sep 9, 2014

# ? Sep 9, 2014 22:30

Ugly John: Jul 18, 2009; [img]https://forums.somethingawful.com/attachment.php?postid=514899866[/img]

2nd win for a team founded on playing Crawl badly, and 2nd win ever for me! (first since around 0.8)

http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/uglyjohn/morgue-uglyjohn-20140909-223948.txt

code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.15.0-25-gd84c1e8 (webtiles) character file.

3258361 uglyjohn the Champion of Chaos (level 27, 28/281 HPs)
             Began as a Hill Orc Fighter on Sept 7, 2014.
             Was the Champion of Makhleb.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 5 runes on Sept 9, 2014!
             
             The game lasted 06:22:47 (66992 turns).

Two things I found true this run:

1. kaschei's suggestion of leaning heavily on Makhleb invocations really works - Minor Destruction was useful for almost the whole game at high Inv (finally petered out around late Depths)

2. Sometimes Crawl really does want you to win:

code:

 b - the +8 mithril axe "Arga" (weapon) {speed, MR+ Str+2}
   (You bought it in a shop on level 4 of the Orcish Mines)   
 i - the +14 crystal plate armour of Indecent Exposure (worn) {rN+ MR+}
   (You acquired it on level 2 of the Lair of Beasts)   
 O - the +6 large shield "Siesk" (worn) {rElec rPois rF+ Slay+5}
   (You found it on level 3 of the Depths)

One of the best shields I've ever seen, really. The other two came fairly early as well.

# ? Sep 9, 2014 23:54

kaschei: Oct 25, 2005

Prism posted:

Isn't minor destruction's element random? I didn't think it turned unresistable at high Invo or anything. I did know it was free but I didn't realize the damage was more than like the 1d8 of magic dart, so that's good to know.

Yeah, the element is random. By "eventually nothing resists it" I mean that the probability of something resisting all n of your invocations tends to zero as n increases - eventually, if you cast it enough, you will do damage to things. It's occasionally annoying to get draining against wights and stuff but in lair it's actually solid, and every once in a while you hit a bee with a poison bolt or something.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 00:13

Inexplicable Humblebrag: Sep 20, 2003

Ugly John posted:

the +14 crystal plate armour of Indecent Exposure

Hahahaa

It is seethrough, I guess.

# ? Sep 10, 2014 00:39

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# ? Jun 2, 2024 22:05

Beeme: Oct 7, 2013

code:

A: antennae 1, thin skeletal structure 1, nightstalker 1

With all this talk of Demonspawns I ended up making a DsMo, hoping for claws and/or monstrous, but I'm at XL4 and my mutations look like this. Should I ditch my fists and take a stabby weapon?

# ? Sep 10, 2014 01:21

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