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Great update! Doom Knight is actually very useful for most people who can use it (it's a +13 greatsword) and even better with Necromancy. -Cast just means you hit ' before casting things, weapon swaps are fast.
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May 1, 2014 19:55
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An Ogre named Su - Two meanings of the word "club" This is only my second Ogre Summoner ever- I got one as a random combination in the recent tournament. I'm hoping that my Ogre Necromancer/Ice Elementalist plans and skills will carry over here, as I like playing summoners with melee. I like Ashenzari with Ogres to boost those atrocious Ogre magic skills along with melee, particularly since you can curse a big weapon relatively early and keep it for a long time, pleasing her.  OgSu begins the quest. Missing an important accessory - a big club! That will be fixed as soon as possible.  Our spell, Summon Small Mammal, begins at 10% failure. The earliest struggles will be to raise spellpower and lower failure chances on our spells. Ogre spell school aptitudes are notoriously terrible, but we have good spellcasting so I will train that a bit more than I would on other characters.  In a fit of brilliance, I am manually exploring, when I hit an extra key and walk into a hobgoblin. On the plus side, he has a club but this is a real reason to use autoexplore.  I bring him back to the entrance area so as to more easily surround him, call my rat friends, and begin to chuck some darts I had found.  This club actually gives me a difficult decision as I'm not sure if immediate melee training is preferable. My instinct from playing OgNe is that I should get my level 3 spell usable first. I also have a runed dagger which I could use for now - and I will. Unfortunately it is cursed. This just means the first remove curse scroll is not wasted.  Our first altar, Cheibriados'! Unfortunately I am holding out for a specific god for LP purposes -- often you should take the first reasonable altar, especially on d:1-2. This is actually probably a very reasonable Chei combo (Ogres like dex, I have a good spellbook, summons can block enemies for slow retreats), but I don't want to. With Chei in particular I would recommend not taking him immeediately, it's nice to be stronger when he starts slowing you for minimal gains.  Sometimes Small Mammal gives a quokka, which is much better than bat/rat. I can have only four creatures at once with that spell, though with 3 MP that won't happen yet.  My autopickup is finding lots of nice robes to try on, and a ring. Let's gamble and try everything - with only two scrolls we might not have remove curse.    Spellpower is now down to 1 # (was 2 at the start of the game). This was an awful D:1 - didn't kill much and are thus still XL1! I will check the scrolls but this could easily just be a death if d:2 has some bad encounters. Also, I waste a scroll of recharging  The second was remove curse, so I'll stop there for now.  Clubstabbing! The worst weapon has a little bonus stun when hitting an unaware target. Note that only "club" gets this, not other maces or even giant clubs, spiked or otherwise.  In 0.15 jewellery auto-IDs on wearing it. Wearing this amulet was a bit silly since it could have been inaccuracy, but clarity could save me an otherwise certain death from orc wizards and inaccuracy won't affect my summons. Getting conservation is OK, it protects my scrolls and potions from destruction. Generally not important but it is convenient, especially early on when I might carry unknown ones for longer.  Finally, XL 2. We get to start summoning imps. White imp is my favourite overall result. The tile is so angelic! But also, he enjoys shooting foes and freezing them for nice damage, even slowing them down.  A fine early find. Surely I can wear naga barding on my head?  Again when possible I want to fight a bit farther from the unknown (or in this case, the sleeping rat) and in a position that lets multiple summons attack alongside me. The crimson imp is less useful than the white imp, he blinks around a lot.  An adder! This is one of the most lethal early monsters (faster than the player, poisonous) and I am only XL2 with 2 types of potion - if they don't include curing and the fight goes poorly I could just die. White imps will do well against it and I already have a quokka from my last fight but I think I should leave him for now - at least try to get a bit more MP or potions.  So I exclude it (using x then e) and go another way.  Makhleb is also a reasonable god (provides demons and blasting and HP), though you would want to be just a normal Ogre and not try to train summoning, I think. And who wants that? Also I need to not die to this hound. It's fast so I can't run that far, but I will still run a little.  A miscast was not good timing, but a shadow imp might do well. I'll continue to step back a little, letting my summons attack.  They do so poorly, but I have no MP for more aid so I need to start swinging the club now.  Now at half HP, and my imp is not being useful. What to do? Check inventory.  Mystery potions/scrolls, and a throwing net.  Well, that wasn't ideal. Now I'm probably just dead. Try a potion?  Potion of agility! This might work - she missed once, anyway. Might as well attack. I also have 1 mp again but I don't think a rat/bat is useful, maybe I'll get a second MP for another imp.  Hurray! I will always be choosing Int on levelups. Some dex would be reasonable but I really want spellpower where I can get it. Note the 150% experience - that hound put us at far more than we needed, though it becomes only 25% of the way to level 4, thanks to later levels costing more. This level also opens up a new spell, Call Canine Familiar.  Release the hounds! Or the hound, anyway - this spell now supports only one summon at a time. However, the weakest it can be is a hound - no jackals. Considering that a hound is probably stronger than me that's a good deal.  I opened a door to this adder, White Imp is being very useful here. I should have enough HP to not die from a poison bite or two.  Or the guys can just kill it.  The cutlass is probably worth using until I want to train maces, since it's a much better weapon than a club - aptitudes mean nothing when I'm not training the skill. Also I should kill that excluded adder (X then ctrl-e to remove all exclusions, or you can use X/x to select it again and e to shrink/remove it).   Now at XL4 after that adder, but I cannot learn a new spell - only 3 levels. Spellcasting is at 3.4 so that will happen any time (you get a new spell level at every 0.5 spellcasting skill), but the new spells are all quite high failure due to having second schools. I do want them (Ice Beast and Lightning Spire particularly) but I'm absolutely not sure if I should get them soon or wait. I'm going to get 4 spellcasting and 6 summoning, then start on maces and one of those, I think. My only other OgSu didn't start melee training at all before his death to foolishness in Lair but he was with The Shining One and thus couldn't use imps anymore.  My dog's better than your dog.  I thought I was done with D:2, but on the way to a staircase down I get this. Priests are very bad news thanks to their unavoidable smiting attack, and he could very well have friends. My closest escape is back the way I came, but that's also moving towards him (and his friends). I will flee west, north, and then east to the staircases up, if needed. If I get out of sight and close a door and am still at high hp, I can probably summon guys and ambush the priest there.  Kobold in the way, not cool. North first it is.  No smites? Then let's fight.  Here we have our first iron imp. I think they hit harder but are slow.  Go team! I got the first hit in, and they did the rest. The kobold is presumably beating up my helpless imp (summons don't attack things you can't see).  I step over here to see what's going on and also be closer to the stairs in case that was actually a group of orcs instead of the lone kobold.  Now going down again, this time not interrupted. I'm using the orc priest's trident for now.  This is a little annoying but should be ok. I want that blowgun and I can use imps to block the hallway and kill the kobold, hopefully.  The imps charge, he puts away the blowgun but before I can get there they kill him. He only had 2 needles, but him putting it away has let me know it is uncursed.  Natasha the FeWz! She is a fairly weak unique with Magic Dart, Slow, Call Imp, and Mephitic Cloud. I can probably deal with her by bringing my own imps, but I'd prefer to wait until the rest of the floor is clear.  With exploding darts and a glowing short sword, this kobold could be troublesome. Normally I am not as paranoid as I should be about glowing weapons, but I'm enjoying doing this writeup and don't want to start from square one again! So I will step back exactly the way I came, and see if my summons can kill him or at least ID the weapon.  Well they had no trouble with him. He kept missing the quokka so I'm actually going to assume the short sword is cursed. Since I want Ashenzari I don't want to waste the remove curse scroll on that weapon if I'm right.  Here I am definitely concerned - a wizard spotted me and hid before I, the player, could see her. The priest does not see me yet so the plan is to run west and kill the wizard, assuming she follows and doesn't cause a confusion disaster.  For a few moves there I thought I had somehow lost her, but something is following, at least. Around the next corner will be a fine place to fight.  Doesn't look like she expected an ogre to do this. I use t then a to command my summons to attack. If you summon with enemies in sight that's usually not needed, wasn't sure if it is here.  That elec weapon is bad news, though. I expect I can overwhelm her but now I'm certain I don't want to be adjacent to her.  She tried a desperation invisibility, but it doesn't work any better than it does for players. The imps already knew where she was.  Her robe is very priestly, and I have a much better weapon now. Electrocution brand was made a little weaker but it's still very strong. Using this while I train magic and wait for a mace is looking tempting - even the no damage hit can be lethal   Another kobold with needles for me.  That's the end of D:3 - but Natasha is still there, let's go back for her. I make some friends first.  OK that was not very good, as that orc pack from before seems to be there. I have a message mentioning the orc priest but not saying "comes into view" so I saw him before. Close the door and move away, hope to fight them in smaller numbers.  From here I'm hoping the horde will kill the priest, or at least distract him. If he smites me more I might want to just run.  White imps, so good. Now I can help, though probably they will just kill my foes before I get there.  Natasha IDs potion of might for me, then dies. That's quite a scream, it indicates Natasha's posthumous ability which may or may not have an effect.  Correct, Shadow imp. This _is_ more fun with friends. We mop up the normal orcs with no trouble.  I want to identify more scrolls now, unfortunately I have no large stacks that are likely identify, and If I find enchant armour it will be wasted as I have no hat or cloak. I will wait a little more.  The state of the Ogre. Still not at my summonings 6 goal, nor sure what I will do at that point. More magic and stick with untrained elec dagger is looking likely. How was the update length? Also, was it too detailed, not detailed enough? Bonus: rcfile At the end of each episode, I will explain a little of my rcfile. code:default_manual_training, because I don't like having to change off of automatic each game. The autopickup line lists glyphs that you would like to pick up by default - money, scrolls, potions, books, jewellery, wands, food, and rods. The only change here is adding rods. The ae := lets me use ae to mean autopickup_exceptions, this was more useful when I had more of those. But between improvements to the ingame pickup and some custom functions I've been stealing, I don't use this as much as I used to - just for god gifts now. pickup_mode - When there are a bunch of items in one place, one usually gets a nice menu; I prefer to have that menu whenever there is more than one item. default_friendly_pickup is orders for your Beogh followers, mercenaries, etc. I let them just take whatever they want, it's easier and I don't have to keep telling them to take stuff. rchandra fucked around with this message at 02:04 on May 5, 2014 |
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May 5, 2014 01:25
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Jazzimus Prime is correct, that hugedmg inclusion indeed prints those messages. On my todo list is making a fixed version that doesn't trigger for berserk or other bonuses ending, if I can figure it out.
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May 5, 2014 05:48
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An Og named Su - Part 2 When we left off, I was considering learning a yet-uncastable level 4 spell. I have decided on Summon Lightning Spire - this spell makes a turret that occasionally shoots lightning. It will need more Summoning and Air Magic skill, if I find a good club I might abandon it for a while.  Onwards, to Dungeon:4. This is the first floor that can hold the Temple, so I will read some of my scrolls, in case I find mapping.  Teleportation on an uncleared floor can be dangerous - if I land in trouble I might not have an easy retreat. This is why I read the scrolls on the staircase, I can just go up and teleport on Dungeon:3 instead.  My remaining scrolls didn't do much - enchant armour made my robe +1, and scroll of noise attracted this guy. Ijyb is a goblin whose main danger comes from sometimes carrying a wand.  One electric hit and a little help from my imps later, he dies. He did not have a wand, or even a corpse.   Reached level 6 from a scorpion. Spire not usable yet.  I would much prefer a real Ogre to this skeleton, unfortunately I cannot use one of its femurs as a club.  The Hound chews him up.  Since I already found blink, teleport, enchant armour, and recharging scrolls, my future ID scrolls will be used on potions. Heal wounds is a fine thing to avoid wasting!  Found the Temple early, anyway! Tiles advantages: The stairs are visible through the smoke, if you forget to read your messages or otherwise investigate the purple smoke. Console advantages: happy gas.  First altar is the one I want. That's marginally useful, because: Ashenzari the Shackled Ashenzari likes it when you explore the dungeon. She* likes it more when you are wearing cursed items, with faster growth for each bound "category". You can bind a category by having over half of your slots in that category cursed, with possible bonuses later for having it fully cursed. You can pray over remove curse scrolls to make scrolls of curse item, which no longer generate randomly. The four categories are:
 While I would like to curse a two-handed weapon now - that's part of the synergy of Ogres and Ashenzari - I haven't found one. So I'll be gaining piety very very slowly; I also don't have two items in the body or magic categories to accomplish anything. I will leave the enchant and remove curse scrolls here, just to be safe.  Because you can't use items to ID them when you are wearing cursed items, Ashenzari gives you a lot of convenience by telling you what's cursed. She also identifies brands. Remember when I thought that short sword was cursed because the kobold wasn't hitting anything - it was!  Our first wand, invisibility. At this point I'd really prefer an attack wand but invisibility is rare and can be useful. All wands can be easily identified by just zapping them once at empty space. Later on you might use ID scrolls, since wasting charges of rare wands is bad.  Didn't we kill you earlier? This is Natasha's special power, she has extra lives, like player felids. She found me when I was checking a staircase up. Slow is a bit annoying, I might return downstairs and rest it off if things go poorly.  My imps demolished her so fast I forgot the screenshot She has one more life, maybe she will appear nearby. She doesn't, though, so let's carry on. An antique weapon shop! Will it have a club?  Doesn't have much, and that's not what I meant by a "club". Ashenzari doesn't ID the shop items for me unless I buy them, either.  Here's a real pickle. With that priest having friends, it might be hard to kill him fast without getting smited.  I go invisible with the wand, move around a bit, use my blowgun to shoot poisoned needles, and trigger the new needlestabbing mechanic! If you use a blowgun on a target that isn't fully aware of you, you get bonuses, like stabbing. For poison I assume it adds more poison on each hit.  Sometimes monsters make really bad guesses about where you are when they can't see you. That or the priest is just using an excuse to cull his followers without Beogh getting mad.   All dead, Lightning Spire at 50% failure.  Another scorpion, another level.  The new floor greets me with the ideal foe - a rival Ogre! His club will be mine.  I use curare needles to slow and poison him, he kills my dog. But I have more friends.  Victory is mine. I shall take his club to the Temple and have it blessed, to the best of my ability - that is to say, cursed.  En route I find this group. Seems a fine time to try out the lightning spire.   It fires slowly, but is also blocking the hallway and immune to the orc wizards's flame.  It also performs a multizap in a non-obvious position, hitting the priest twice with one blast.   And all is dead. Spire at 38% failure.  Back at the Temple, I pray over the scrolls of remove curse. This converts them into curse scrolls. The two scrolls became 6, in a variety of types. I curse the club for now, I will wait to enchant it for a while though.  Ashenzari continues the trend of letting me know things I would have learned easily, if I could freely equip weapons. Her information given will depend on which slots I have bound - the club is binding both hands.  Now that I can't use other weapons, I drop them all - including my awesome dagger, and curare needles . Also, I drop the spare robes and unfitting naga barding. I'm gaining a little piety for exploring now, so I might as well explore the temple. I find altars to all remaining normal gods, except The Shining One and the new ones - Gozag and Qazlal. This is because the game was started before they got merged into current trunk, and many dungeon structure changes won't affect old games.  Oops. The low speed and accuracy is going to be bad with this weapon for a while, now I am lethally poisoned from this ant. I can drink heal wounds, or look for curing - but I have no large potion stacks, so it should be heal wounds.  Won, but that was a heavy cost. That fight is a good example of two things: The fights you underestimate are the dangerous ones. I could have summoned more stuff first and not had much trouble. Secondly, wasting consumables can kill. If I had not used scrolls to find the healing potion earlier, I might have died here - and having wasted the potion in this fight through poor play, I might die later from not having it . Of course, having consumables and dying isntead of using them is even worse. Magic skills developing slowly. I'm going to start on Maces, and cut off summoning/air at 6 and 4, respectively.  Fortunately Ogres learn to club things really easily.  And when I do hit things, I hit them really hard. The enemy hound died in one hit, before my summons could join in. Sorry, screenshot missing. Potions of curing have been identified, that could prevent another poisonous death. It also removes confusion.  Ashenzari has IDed another fine item but I am no longer interested in other weapon types. Now that I have * piety and a cursed weapon, she is also letting me know about enemy weapon brands. This lets one be paranoid about the dangerous brands only, instead of every orc with a glowing weapon - which is far too stressful for mere mortals like me to do outside of the very early game.  This book contains many high level spells from either Conjurations, Necromancy, or Summoning. It will require more skill in the appropriate spell school to ID it, or I can use a scroll. If it is Necromancy or Summoning I will use spells from it eventually, but certainly not soon.  Here I'm being cautious and making my friends first. After I attack, my hound and the iguana eack attack twice because the giant club is so slow (currently 1.6 turns, visible in the upper right under "Time").  Ashenzari warns me of potential trouble from this centaur. I will try to keep summons between us. The crimson imps are highly resistant to the fire arrows.  Success. The white imp is drawing attention to her lateness.  D:5 complete. Still need some more jewellery and armour to curse, but the club was the most important thing.  Jellies are jerks and like eating items and ruining equipment. I will throw stones to get it over here (they can't eat stones or large rocks) and summon allies, I don't want this club getting corroded.  Incidentally, there was a bug for a little while that would have had my weapon enhancing my thrown stones. Unfortunately that has been fixed.  Tomahawks are fine things to throw. I can't swap weapons, so tomahawks/javelins/large rocks are even more useful than normal. Often I would just use the turns to summon instead, though.  Another Ogre, but still no spiked club. Monster Ogres look much bigger than the player Ogre. In console they're both just O.  I make a Spire for fun, even though it's still at 34% failure. That spell probably won't be that great for me until I get Ashenzari support. Summonings can be turned off, for now.  A sky beast could be annoying as I can't see invisible - they like to turn invisible, and shock you. If it becomes a problem I can walk away until it reappears, though.  I'm standing on the other side of it, so my summons will attack it if they try to walk towards me.  But this is too much damage.  While I retreat, the beast doesn't follow, distracted by the summons. eventually it reappears and they kill it easily.  While this shop could be much better (really want a cloak or hat, not useless artefact gloves), the storm dragon armour is interesting. I could easily use that later on. Ogres cannot wear normal body armour other than robes, but can wear dragon armours. Storm Dragon armour is like plate armour with rElec, and a bit lighter. I will put that on my shopping list (press e to choose it, then $).  I continue to use ID scrolls on potions, finding another nice one. This is probably the strongest consumable item in the game, making you much faster at all actions. (Screenshot missing) I find an amulet of the gourmand - I will use it for now. Gourmand lets you stuff your face when you're already satiated, so I don't need to worry about a fight or two taking me to Starving.  Ashenzari has started showing me monsters. The range of this will go up with piety. The important advantage of this as compared to antennae, which also show monsters (as you can see in Floodkiller's game), is that she includes the rough threat level. This monster is "dangerous". In console, it's singing . So I might as well try to set up a Spire first. Here I get a miscast effect, hostile imps.  After I deal with them, I try again and then open the door. Sometimes the threat detection doesn't agree with my judgement. An imp is not dangerous now.   Dungeon:6 complete, the character is starting to feel better, with the club. But it will still be a little while to get straightened out (had I started with melee instead of magic, maces would be at a much higher level now), and hopefully more jewellery will exist. If I really get desperate, I can use that -3 ring of intelligence. Lightning Spire is at 28% failure. Next episode is probably Lair or bust. rcfile code:code:If a spell is expiring, it will print a message to the "duration" channel - I want rest/travel to stop then. If I am worshipping Xom, I also want to stop whenever he Xoms (this setting won't work until after a save/reload if I worship Xom midgame). code:I want my inventory sorted with equipped items first, then by age (food), charges (wands), and alphabetically. code:
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May 11, 2014 02:17
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An Og Named Su, Part 3 Last time, we found Ashenzari and were ready to attempt Dungeon 7 with the new club and Summon Lightning Spire. Still hoping for a spiked club, or usable jewellery or armour to curse.  A sleeping bear!  What an awful stab. Stabbing skill is based on weapon skill (and stealth), so the low weapon skill is hurting this twice.  A hound and a nice white imp join me, and we dispatch the bear with no trouble. Enemies distracted by summons can be "stabbed" too, just not as well as sleeping ones.  Esting some corpses remind me of a trunk change - Ogres no longer enjoy rotting meat. As compensation, they no longer hunger quickly either. Net result, fewer eating keypresses.   Reached ** piety. At this point Ashenzari raises my skills, if I have appropriate sections bound. The amount of the boost depends on current skill, boundedness, and maybe piety. I get a big boost to weapon skill since it's both hands, later I can hope for armour/dodging/stealth and magic school skills (for armour and jewellery, respectively).  Seeing the rest of this pack makes me glad I called allies sooner. Took two tries to make the lightning spire.  Here I'm standing between the spire and what I want it to hit. It won't shoot me, but that's still not helpful.  Ok that didn't go well. time to walk up and try again, hopefully not getting smited to death.  The orcs are distracted by the summons, so I escape. Unfortunately the imps don't finish off the priest. I will take another staircase down next time.  Not an improvement. Joseph has a sling and a quarterstaff, and uses both very well. The grey guy is a necrophage, who hits a little hard for me now and can also remove my maximum HP. I will try to return while invisible, with the wand.  This isn't working either, Joseph knows where I am and if I wander around trying to make him lose me, I might lose my escape.  So I'll try to lose them up here.  This is a bit better.  But he was able to outlast my spire, and my invisibility. I will quaff agility and finish him. Potions of agility raise my Dexterity, but also raise my evasion (in addition to the effect Dex might have on it).  Well, that was a waste of the potion. One good hit got him. Better safe than sorry, though.  Resting up afterwards, an iguana comes by and runs into my club to push me to XL 9. Lightning Spire is down to 24% failure.  Joseph had a bunch of cool useless stuff that Ashenzari identifies for me. I will move the sling to make it less likely an enemy will use it.  drat it, Ashenzari. Her piety doesn't usually decay noticeably, but I hadn't really explored since getting the skill boost and the fights/rests took a long time.  Got it back, 85 seconds later, including writing the previous caption.  Well, I found a ring. Ashenzari will grant see invisible herself soon anyway, but I will probably curse it after this floor just to get the magic skills boost. Ashenzari is also showing me a shop. It was a scroll shop, useful but not exciting. I buy mapping/summoning scrolls to ID them, and ID scrolls for my potions.  Pressing \ then - lets me see what items I haven't found yet. Mapping and summoning were both new to me, and I still have 3 piles of scrolls. They are probably among fear, fog, uselessness, amnesia - I will read them now.  Fog, uselessness, and immolation. Immolation gives everything around me the Inner Flame status, making them explode on death. This is occasionally useful but very dangerous. IDing two potions found mutation end beneficial mutation. I will resist the peer pressure and only drink beneficial.  Getting free resistance to fire and poison is pretty good. This also makes me feel better about cursing a useless ring. I'll still wait until after the floor.  Air has reached level 4, so I'll just be training melee for a while. Lightning Spire is at 21% failure (and yellow rather than red, so less likely to have bad miscasts), Ashenzari's magic skill boost will probably make it much better.  More priest packs. I begin retreating, but this will be a fine place for a spire.  Or a rainstorm. Miscast effects can be troublesome, I'm probably lucky I didn't have any big ones early when the failure chance was red.  The next spire kills them all. Corridors are so good there. Had the orcs approached to melee me, they could be getting hit twice per bolt, as well.  Despite poison resistance, these bees are hitting me hard. Teleporting might be prudent, but I read a scroll of summoning first. It made some high HP allies, including an Ogre with a spiked club; I will not get to keep that club, it will vanish with him.  And I didn't notice the trident letting the orc hit me from there. RIP, Su. I really should have followed my first instinct there and teleported. Where there are two bees, there are lots and I was not currently good against high-EV fragile enemies like that, even with rP.  While my equipment hadn't been great, I found this in my inventory . Wouldn't have been useful for a very long time, but still nice to have.For the next update, I will be fast-forwarding until I have a similar position, unless you folks want me to show things as they happen. rcfile code:code:code:code:code:Force_mores use regular expressions, so I've written mine to try to match common variations - like "a Shadow Fiend and 3 imps come into view", not just "A Shadow Fiend comes into view".
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May 22, 2014 19:26
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An Og Named Su, Part 4 Now begins a parade of successors, trying to carry the mantle of the previous OgSu. Hopefully it is a parade of  I am trying a different skill approach - I want good melee sooner, so at any given time I will be training 50% melee at a minimum. Still want 4 Spellcasting and 6 Summonings, but I might not train side schools for the level 4 summons until after Ashenzari is helping.   D:1 complete. Canine Familiar is still usable even with low skill, it just won't be as long-lasting.   XL 5. The big spells aren't very castable.  D:5 has an Ossuary for me. A very good player pointed out on ##crawl that the earlier portal vaults give better treasure than the later ones, since consumables are always useful - especially early on. Extra experience is also very nice.  Ossuaries are full of mummies and zombies, and mostly provide potions and scrolls. Mummies curse your equipment when you kill them, so if I had a good weapon I could consider trying to make sure they curse it to give me a boost when I find Ashenzari (just drop all your other equipment). But my flail isn't anything special, and I'd rather have allies helping (if an ally kills a mummy, it gets the curse, and most curses aren't relevant to others).  11 rat skeletons! Whatever shall I do?   Well, my flail got cursed anyway. Not a problem, there's surely remove curse in one of those big piles of scrolls - I'll try to wait until I find Ashenzari or a better weapon first, though.  Like this one. After the fight I read remove curse (unfortunately uncurseing the robe too), after the floor I'll test the other scrolls. Training is now 66% maces / 33% summoning / 1% supersecretmagical skill.  I'm in the Ecumenical Temple, but something looks a bit odd. Lugonu, god of the Abyss, has reached out to take it over, replacing several altars with his* own. Those gods' altars will still appear as normal in the Dungeon. Normally here I'd probably take Lugonu since it's a rare chance to find such a temple, and a giant spiked club of distortion (Lugonu's final gift) is fun. But I really do like Ash, and I want to be doing some summoning - without the skill boost and with training Invocations that might not be happening as much as I'd like. *Lugonu was originally called Lucy, so is often seen as female. The name reminds me of Roberto Luongo, though.  Fortunately Ashenzari's altar was unaffected by Lugonu. I join her, ID a few scrolls and potions, read the rest of the scrolls, and convert 4 remove curse scrolls... into not what was needed.  The last scroll is nonhelpful. Perhaps that mummy curse was actually relevant, wasting one scroll. Piety gain will again be very slow until I find a more cooperative scroll, as I have no jewellery and not enough armour to bind. If only I had found the ogre before the ossuary . Yeah, having more club power first is good.  On D:7 I find an amulet of guardian spirit. This lets me take some wounds to MP instead of HP, increasining survivability. Since I have nothing bound I will curse that and the ring of flight, as two safe items (the ring of fire would be dangerous to have on continuously, as it makes me vulnerable to cold).  On seeing this mummy I am very tempted to do something foolish - abandon Ashenzari, have the mummy curse my club (Ashenzari would block the curse), rejoin. I should check in wizard mode (offline only, press & with a new character) if that actually works, or if she will be too mad, or something else will go wrong.  Seems like it should, so let's do this. In order to renounce a religion (a then X) you need to confirm it twice.  Ashenzari wrath is like having her skill boost in reverse: -4 to all skills, losing at most half of each skill. So this is like -8 or -9 if you do it later, since you're losing your bonus and gaining the penalty.  I had dropped all my other equipment, so that the death curse would "randomly" choose my club.  Ashenzari welcomes me back, and now with three bound categories (hand, other hand, magic) piety should come in fast enough.  Again with the marginal items. I could curse this to improve the skill boost, but it's probably not worth it. I'll wait until I have 2-3 jewellery that are actually good to change them.  Blork the orc is an orc wizard, but beefier. His weapon could be dangerous, too. I'm going to call some allies and move back towards the stairs.  He very cruelly tortures my dog with his glaive of pain.  But he cannot stand before my flock.   I pick up Lightning Spire and Ice Beast now. They aren't very castable - I'll train some Air now, then Ice when I can.  Two excellent robes for sale. I'll buy them both, and use the +2 one. Fire resistance is better than MR for me, I think, but 2 AC is more important still. MR is certainly never a bad thing, though. On trying it on I find I actually had picked up a +2 robe of nothing earlier that I forgot to check. Whoops.  Everybody's favourite unique! Sigmund is infamous for killing players. He's just an orc wizard with a scythe, though - only really dangerous on d:2 or d:3. Still, I want to keep allies around, and be ready to run. His spells are Throw Flame, Confuse, Invisibility, and Magic Dart - I would wear my ring of fire, but Ashenzari kindly informed me of his wand of frost.  Now he's invisibly killing my imps. Still, I have more, and the hound can sense him - the old imps will guess at his location, I'm not sure if the new one can do anything.  My allies are being ineffective, I join in and eventually walk into him and then club him.  Horrible death and/or jellies could be behind that door (monsters won't open it, so vault designers are free to make nasty surprises). I will wait at least until the end of this floor for this, and probably come back in a floor or three.  An ugly thing is normally not a serious threat but I'm surprised to see one so early. Probably it's alone - they spawn in packs in Vaults and later Dungeon. They change colours and have elemental attacks matching their colour (purple used to cause sickness, but sickness was removed so I think they just hit harder). They are also a little faster than the player so I can't run forever.  But I can run to here and smash it.  Another one? I'll do the same, glad I didn't run into the whole pack at once.  Spoke too soon, and the orcs joined in too. I might want to teleport. Let's look at my scrolls.  No fear scrolls, and only 2 teleport - still, they're common so probably I'll find more before I regret using one here. What about potions?  Invisibility should help me get away also, I'll use that. It's rarer than teleport but right now I really don't want to waste teleport scrolls.  I make a retreat to the stairs, throwing darts and summoning imps, killing one ugly thing. When I get there I also make a lightning spire (2nd attempt), so I think I'm fine to fight until invisiblity expires, at least.  OK that's not ideal - the brown ugly thing has corroded my items, making my AC and melee damage worse for a while (permanent corrosion is no longer present). Time to go up.  I forgot they could follow me while invisible ... and now I seem to recall Joseph doing this last update. Learning from my mistakes? Why would I do that? Getting away from this costs all my escape scrolls as blink didn't let me get to the stairs (they caught up) and the first teleport leaves me in sight of them. Using one teleport would have been much better . Regrettably, snozzcumbers were cut - all fruit is now just "fruit". This is much more convenient in the inventory, and at least sometimes you still eat a snozzcumber.  Taking them one at a time is much easier.  I decide that things are already bad so I should eat the ugly corpses. After two chunks granting fire breath and poison resistance I'm feeling a bit better, I'll stop here.  Summonings has reached level 6, so I'll work on Air a bit more.  Another summoner. He has no pesky summon caps, but he can only make imps and mammals.  Whereas I can make dogs and lightning (sometimes).  When my allies get the finishing blow like this sometimes his summons don't vanish until I take another turn.  Finally got * piety. Feels like a long time because of that huge ugly thing mess, which was all in previously seen territory, so I wasted a lot of time there.   I <3 Ashenzari.  A fine hat. I'll go ahead and curse that and my robe, since I have plenty of curse armour and jewellery scrolls for when I'm ready to change.   Like so. This kill also brings Air Magic to level 4, so I start working on Ice Beast for Lair.  Got ** piety, enabling the skill boost. Lightning Spire is now very safe, and Ice Beast getting there - and Ice isn't even at 1 yet! I hope to find some new spellbooks soon, either more summons or general good spells.  Ashenzari is letting me know about some monsters here. This is a Fedhas altar vault, those monsters are wandering mushrooms. I don't want to fight them - since I can't see them around corners there's no way to safely engage without them hitting me, which can cause confusion. I'll exclude the vault and come back later.  Remember this? Let's see what it is. I put down a spire first, in case I have to run back it can shoot at the monsters.  That doesn't look bad... I should move my spire to the inside though, I sense a trap.  OK that wasn't actually much. There was one jelly racing for the gold, which died before I could screenshot it.    I'm now more or less ready for Lair. Not having any escape scrolls is bad, and the jewellery is pretty weak. But I have all categories bound, and both magic and melee are doing fine. I could do one or two more floors of the dungeon - it's easier to get away and return there since there are three up-staircases, while Lair:1 has only 1. Most things in Dungeon are normal speed too, Lair's black mamba and water moccasins are fast and furious. rcfile I'm glad to see some people are enjoying this section - I worried that everybody who cares already knew what they need. Keep on looking at other rcfiles (MarvinPA and elliptic are two good examples) and the options guide though, there's more you can do and you want things to be to your own taste. code:code:code:code:code:
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May 28, 2014 19:47
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Yeah, people talk about the recent changes making ID less relevant, but I think it's become more relevant. Not getting multiple per scroll means it takes longer to identify your consumables, which is where the relevant decisions are. Do you try to avoid wasting teleport/blink/recharge/EA, or avoid wasting heal wounds/might/*mutations? ID the small stacks to find rare things and use the big ones, or ID the big ones looking for good tactical items, and then use the big ones to make use of enchant weapon III/acquirement/experience ASAP? Nice update ZeeToo - what was it you ran from in the Ice cave? I'd have thought swiftflight and your rod or god or spells could handle everything in there.
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May 29, 2014 05:57
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ZeeToo posted:It looks okay on my end even after a forced refresh. Can you confirm it's still an issue/someone else second this? I'll definitely rehost if it's not showing up, but I think it may be fixed. I can see them now, and couldn't before - you're probably fine. I've got one update almost ready, should be able to crop and post Monday.
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Jun 8, 2014 06:48
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An Og Named Su, Part 5 Previously...   This ogre was last seen considering entering the lair. With good clubbing power and HP and the abillity to call for help (Dogs and Tesla coils) this would seem very reasonable, but foolish play caused me to use all of the meager supply of escape scrolls. So I've decided to do one or two floors of the dungeon, hopefully finding more items and having Summon Ice Beast more reliable. If they are too hard hopefully I can still make it back to Lair.  Checking inventory reveals a ton of unknown potions (need more ID scrolls) and an unknown wand. I zap the wand at a wall and find it is slowing, nothing special.  I feel safer already. Also, my hat is really sparkly.  At *** piety, Ashenzari's grants clarity (immunity to confusion and related effects) and see invisible - I can drop the ring of see invisible now.  Wide corridors can be a bit convenient here, easy for me and mine to all fight.  This centaur might be trying to worship Ashenzari, but is instead just violating rules from the Evil Overlord list. (Its bow is cursed, so it is clubbing me with it.)  This giant is currently marked as "extremely dangerous". I should move back a bit and fight it. (Who can spot the cell I tested the wand of disintegration on?)  This is a good place for the spire, but I shouldn't have summoned the imp, it's just going to be in the way. Hill Giants can't do anything special, so I'm reasonably sure we can kill it.  This was not quite open enough. But the hound and I are doing fine, and kill it from here.  This is a much more reasonable depth for ugly things. There is a fine corridor to face them in.  Good shot. I clubbed the imp to make him get out of the way, and we shoot/club the ugly things.  Finishing off the pack, Ice Magic reaches 4. I'm going to work on Dodging now - even though my Dex is bad and Ogres have a penalty for their size, Ashenzari will help and there's no need to be defenseless while I wait for good armour. Fighting will also help both clubbing and HP.  Josephine looks tiny - in console she's bigger than that orc! (@ vs o). She can cause much trouble with ghostly fireballs that bury me in undead, I think I'd rather just go to the Lair now. I just walk back the way I came, she gets to shoot once but nothing relevant happens.  This is somehat dangerous - blink frogs have good melee and can blink around. I'm also nearly starving. I'll start making Ice Beasts and eat some jerky.  By the time I summon as much as I can (3 beasts, a dog, a spire, an imp) my beasts have started dying. I'm still standing on the stairs, hopefully I can get out when needed but I need to clear what I can here first, otherwise re-entering might be impossible.  Good club. The ice beasts sometimes slow cold-blooded enemies in melee. Most of the dangerous enemies in Lair are cold-blooded so this is really really useful (You can also do this with Freeze or Ice Form for Ice Elementalists and Transmuters, if I may digress).  I take a big hit and look at my potions - berserk is very tempting but I am too hungry again. I'm going to quaff heal wounds and see if my summons kill something - I might want to move so I'm not getting hit by so much, give up the stairs.  A bit better. There is still a feeling of doom, though - particularly with these others joining in.  That was looking a bit bad, so after killing one more frog I go up. The crocodile can follow, but my summons can't.  If I knew I'd just one-shot the crocodile I could have done that below . Time to rest up and eat a meat ration, then try again. Now you are the one who is hopelessly outnumbered.  I drop off some stuff on the stairs. I'm not much for formal stashes, but stuff I'm not using needs to be somewhere and it might as well be here. Item destruction and weight not existing anymore in trunk, I don't need to worry about things like extra rations and curing potions, so I only drop things that I don't need at all (to free up item slots).  A player ghost! Troll Wanderer sounds like it might be painful to melee and have a lot of HP. I want no part of this now and it hasn't seen me yet - time to walk away and look for a staircase. I've only seen a one-way hatch so far, which is also very risky.  Options, options. This is a shaft, to move me down 1-3 floors.  Now it sees me as I exit the dead end. I'm just going to take the hatch.  I'm sorry, we can't all have claws.  Good, a safe landing. I'd like to find stairs up to have a retreat ready.  Like so.  Exploring more of the first floor finds this fine fellow! Uniques are blessed with titles now. This slug hits hard and wears a stylish hat. He can haste himself and Airstrike me (hitting me behind my summons), and summon some rats of his own. Ashenzari didn't describe his hat so it's probably plain and I have a +2 hat, so it's probably not worth expending any resources to kill him now.  I walk here, keeping Gastronok off-screen so he can't do anything, while my beasts and I use our faster speed to kill the yaks. After this I return to Lair:2, the ghost and Gastronok are making exploration difficult.  I reach **** piety, and Ashenzari grants an activated ability to look through walls and see what's there. This ability is fairly cheap and convenient for looking into dangerous vaults and sometimes at detected enemies (there's a big difference between a "extremely dangerous" giant and a lich, for example). The skill boost continues to grow in power, as well - I might stop training Maces soon and let it take me the rest of the way to my target of 22.  This area is infested with elephants. We know how to deal with that - with  Black mamba is very fast and strong. I still have poison resistance from eating the purple meat, but better safe than sorry. It's cold blooded so the ice beasts will mangle it.   They seem to be doing better without me. I took a bunch of nice hits for them, at least!  Piety decay!  Good friendly fire. I'd have wanted the spire to take the shot.  Level 12! Again, taking dex is very reasonable but I want to get more cool spells - also more power for my existing ones.  after the floor I identify more potions. The beneficial mutation is...  Another spit attack. I'd have much preferred upgrading the existing one, since the level 1 versions are not great and I usually have plenty to do while waiting for monsters so I don't even really use them.  The next floor has an ice cave. I don't have cold resistance, but the ice cave is a fine place to find it! Ashenzari will helpfully find the portal for me so I can probably reach it in time. (It's the yellow square to my northeast on the minimap).  The welcoming party levels up Maces, I'll leave it there for now and start on more Summoning (maybe to 8 or 10 before the boost?) for spellpower. Taking Ice/Air to 6 or so would also be good.  The portal is guarded by ice beasts, too. En garde!  Inside all I see is twisty passages and a way out (I'm standing on it). But let's cheat and scry through the wall at those enemies...  Seeing these animals confirms that this is a fairly easy cave. I just need to not get overwhelmed and my club and summons should kill just about everything easily.  This is more problematic, it could be difficult to rest safely if there are cloud generators. Freezing clouds can do a fair bit of damage if I hang around in them with no cold resistance. I want that manual at least, though.  I use a wand of disintegration to approach in a safer fashion, claim my reward (a manual of Dodging! this will improve my defenses!) and retreat.  And then advance again because I figure that places with enemies don't get clouds, otherwise those enemies would die.  Finding a few items. That's a decent ring mail (Vegas!), pity I can't wear it.  Another dangerous enemy - I thought it was a death yak, but decided to look through the wall and am rewarded. It is a spell-less ghost, at least. I check the log and find he doesn't look threatening - he died wielding a rod, and doesn't have great defenses.  I put a spire down and shout so we can fight it 2 vs 1. The spire doesn't shoot for some reason but it doesn't matter. Ghosts with rods can't use them, so he doesn't do anything.  Some of my spectators are smarter than me - I thought both tough enemies there were death yaks, but had only actually seen one when retreating from the northeast. I put down a spire to help, but...  That hurts. I plan to step south-west, then heal, then berserk.  He axes my spire - drat cleaving. But now I can step out of his sight.  I quaff heal wounds and agility, and plan to berserk. I could place another spire - but if the giant shoots me instead of walking, that's bad.  RIP AND TEAR AND SMASH AND CRUNCH!!  I find some more stuff that's great for non-ogres. The demon trident is worth carrying in case it can be used to enter a treasure trove. The book of Ice is very tempting, some fun spells in there:  Metabolic Englaciation slows all my foes, and refrigeration damages everything (including me). Freezing Cloud might also be reasonable - often the triple school is bad, but I can just get a little Conjurations and have Ash help, and get more ice/air for my other spells anyway. Freezing Cloud makes freezing clouds for enemies to walk in, even with low spellpower it's good. I'll decide on that for next time. rcfile This section modified the character dump/morgue file. code:The last line shows the name of every vault in the game (only visilble after death, of course). code:Chat messages are logged since sometimes they're funny. rchandra fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 00:01
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SirSamVimes posted:I don't really understand the appeal of felid. Half the fun of the game is loot joy, and you miss out on that as a kitten. On the other hand, your strategic decisions are easier! (Especially felid berserker before wands were allowed or evokables were good or felid stabbing became non-terrible... felids really have gotten better).
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Jun 14, 2014 02:31
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An Og Named Su, Part 6 Last time, after a  I'm going to wait until my other skills are a bit higher, then probably learn Metabolic Englaciation to support melee, and consider Refrigeration or Freezing Cloud later.  I find a pile of 3 of an unknown scroll, these are all great. I'm just going to read it, if it's recharging or summoning that's not ideal but I don't want to wait for identify since I still have plenty of unknown potions too.  Summoning, oh well. Makes some temporary allies with strength related to the current location.  Nergalle the Soulbinder can summon spectral orcs, drain me, and become invincible. I should be able to overwhelm her.  drat it. Well, I just keep killing her summoned orcs and eventually Death's Door expires and we kill her - while invincible she can't heal, at least.  The Spider's Nest - with poison resistance and clarity, this will not be too bad when I have more defenses. I still enjoy Snake more, though. Each game contains one of Snake/Spider and one of Swamp/Shoals.  Typical Lair pack encounters.  Ashenzari's final power is at 5* piety, allowing me to change my skilling. I choose which skill to move from (and see what it will end up as, looking at either the enhanced or normal values) ...  ... and what it will boost. Here we see that like 3 Dodging could be a lot of Fighting/Throwing/Spellcasting etc. The ability wastes some of the XP and it's very rare to actually use it - since early levels are cheap anyway you don't gain much out of moving them, so the question is why did you get high levels of something useless. Here I might use it on Dodging once I find good armour - I'm training Dodging more than I otherwise would because of the manual and Ash boost.  A read-IDed scroll of brand weapon provides the best common result - Freezing is excellent throughout the whole game, with slowing of most of Lair and draconians in Zot being a very nice feature.  Swamp is my other lair branch. I much prefer it to Shoals on most characters, this is no exception. The freezing club will crush hydrae and having rP/clarity is a convenience.  This necromancer has been busy.  Speaking of necromancers, this is a fine artefact that Ashenzari tells me about, but not for an ogre. This also made me realise that now weapons only get one plus, which affects both accuracy and damage. My giant spiked club also got a boost from this (it used to be +4/+1).  This on the other hand is amazing. Praise the Floor God.  And finally another blink after that horrible mess two updates ago.  I'm not sure why yaks are still marked as "dangerous" when a spire can do most of the work itself.  After finishing the manual of Dodging, I start Ices/Hexes for Metabolic Englaciation. I also turned Maces on instead of Fighting, I'm not sure that Ashenzari is going to get me all the way to 22 skill from 16 base - I'll get 17 or 18.  These spells present an alternative choice - Mephitic Cloud confuses enemies, but Ice Beast, Spire and I are all immune to it. Olgreb's Toxic Radiance repeatedly poisons everything (bypasses my own rP, but Cure Poison would fix that). I'll take Mephitic Cloud now, but not get much poison until after Metabolic Englaciation is good.  Lair:8 opens with a Slime entry vault. Pulsating lumps can mutate you but this is rarely an issue with their speed and poor defenses.  Hydras are serious foes. I have a lot of HP, but with ogre AC that will vanish fast. Between the four of us slowing it, it should die easily.  Or even if we don't manage to slow it.  Found a ring of wizardry, drastically lowering the failure of Englaciation from 55% to 26%.  This cave leads to death yaks and catoblepae, a fun lair ending that shouldn't be too hard with the summons to stop me from getting swarmed. I'll explore the rest of the floor first.  This is clearly bees with a queen bee. If the monster faces were more varied I could use scrying instead of just setting up the turret.  The reward is 12 royal jellies, a food for both carnivores and herbivores (formerly called honeycomb).   I read-ID a scroll of recharging, and use it on the wand of heal wounds. I also use an ID scroll to show the number of charges in the wand. Only acquirement and enchant armour are unknown for scrolls, and cure mutation for relevant potions.  A catoblepas can petrify you with its breath, but if your next step is to get out of the cloud you'll be unaffected. Having the spire shoot while I move is helpful.  The reward is not looking great. A staff of summoning makes those spells better, but I'm not sure I want to uncurse my weapon yet (and thus need more skill). The disc of storms is a way to kill everything around with electricity (including me) with enough Evocations. I'll want storm dragon armour or something before using that (for both electricity resistance and good AC).  Clearing out my spell list. I'm not using imps anymore, and I can perhaps curse the ring of wizardry to make Freezing Cloud more possible.  Time for a rematch with Gastronok back on Lair:1.  No trouble, no reward.  This blinking Chei Troll ghost also gets a rematch.  I have to replace the spire and beasts, but we wear it down.  I curse the ring of wizardry and my cloak to improve the skill boosts. I'll get a bit more power for Englaciation first and then work on Freezing Cloud. It would have been nice to find some higher level summons instead but I'll take what I can get.  Back to the Dungeon, I've found the entry to the Orcish Mines. After clearing it out I notice that I summoned a wolf! Those are much stronger than hounds, it's nice to see the improvement.  Ashenzari's information includes mimics. I'll just kill it, but it's nice to not be surprised - walking into a mimic while running from something can be very bad.  A pack of ugly things, I've slowed them all with Englaciation.   And the last of our rematches, Josephine cannot withstand the club and the spire. She rewards me with a level-up.  Orc will be the next stop, hoping for good armour or Summonings texts in the shops.  Snorg, an angry troll unique. He's killing my dog.  It takes a few uses of Englaciation to get him back to normal speed.  But the club finishes him while he is looking at somebody else. He does drop off a hide, if I find a bunch of enchant scrolls I'd be tempted to wear him. Troll hide can become troll leather armour, which is marginally better than leather (1 more AC, improved regeneration) but ogres can't wear normal leather anyway.  Every staircase is a new adventure.  Or a new graveyard.  Orc Knights are not scary when they are outnumbered.  On reaching the bottom of Orc, I notice that I reached the last piety marker for Ashenzari. She doesn't do anything special there, but my Maces skill is now enhanced to 22.  These centaurs suggest that to my west is the ending vault, filled with centaurs and crossbow-wielding orcs. This would be a good time to not be an ogre (or possibly to remember I have Mephitic Cloud, though it is very noisy)  This is a fine spot for Mephitic Cloud.  Drown, baby, drown.  After the orcs have fallen into the drink or run into my club, I find the four shops: potions, weapons, two general stores.  No need to buy cure mutation now, but good to know it's available.  Nothing much here, recharging is like several heal wounds potions at once though . Scroll of enchant weapon (all 3 scroll types were merged). They now always work but are rarer as well - that change isn't live yet so I wasted the scroll . The lantern is useful (reduces LOS and summons tons of shadows with enough evocations) but requires weapon swapping so it will have to wait. And another good axe for not me.   State of the Ogre. Next time I will do more of the Dungeon, hopefully making Freezing Cloud usable for Swamp or Spider. rcfile This section is all item/monster glyphs, so minimal effect for tiles players. code:I define 'mons' and 'item' as shortcuts. code:code:code:code:code:code:It seems I can't have those unicode characters in the code boxes - wherever you see & #1234 etc, the appropriate character should be there instead. You can also usually specify it with the code point, like x263c for ☼.
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Jun 17, 2014 00:10
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100 HOGS AGREE posted:rchandra would you post a link to your rcfile? http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/rcfiles/crawl-git/rchandra.rc Should be able to make an update this weekend - I took some time off with the forum downtime and Steam sale.
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Jul 4, 2014 19:54
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An Og Named Su, Part 7 Last time, this melee/summoning OgSu had started on Ice spells since no more summons had been found, With Lair and Orc complete, it is time to finish the Dungeon and then work on a Lair branch for a rune.  Slime creatures are a pretty common foe from here on, when possible it's good to retreat when you see one since they are always in packs and much more dangerous together.  Here you can see the extra ones around the corner.  And here my warg ran forwards and made noise, causing them to merge into something that can probably kill me in two hits.  Retreating while distracting it with spires and throwing tomahawks works fine.  Another potion of beneficial mutation provides +MP, a minor benefit. Especially with guardian spirit, so it's now like more HP.  This fire is blocking a little gold. I might as well walk through and get it, with ogre HP and guardian spirit it's fine without rF.  Return trip, total cost: 100 damage.  Upgrading my throwing weapon.  D:13 has the book of Summonings for me, a great find. Now I am considering abandoning Freezing Cloud even though it's almost reliable - the 6 spell levels would let me easily fit two of these spells, and I wouldn't be as tied to my wizardry ring. It'll be much easier to get level 6 single-school spells like Menagerie, even with Ashenzari helping all 3 schools of Freezing Cloud. For now I'll just get Menagerie - will need a little more Spellcasting.  Skeletal warriors have good defenses and can often cause trouble with their weapons, but keeping the fight 3v1 helps a lot. The fight gives me the additional 0.5 Spellcasting needed for Menagerie (I also used an amnesia scroll to forget Summon Small Mammal, which I never use anymore).  It summons harpies! It can also make a manticore, lindwurm, or sphinx (only with a lot of spellpower).  Gate to the Vaults. I can't go in there yet, I need a rune.  Menagerie in action. I let them get an advantage on me while trying to surround them with summons, taking more damage than needed.  I need to remember to use Englaciation _before_ I make normal fleshy allies.  Unknown scroll is either acquirement or enchant armour (all others have been found)...  Oh well, I'll take the 1 free AC on my cloak. Though it is tempting to wear Snorg, that might have been better.  A mottled dragon leaves a hide, if I find a bunch of enchant armour that could be good to get some AC.  This is a fairly cruel trove cost - assuming I can't just buy or find the armour, it'll need 4 enchant armour scrolls (with the first one in the game having just been found) and I have to actually find storm dragons, too. I'd also be very tempted to just wear the armour given my strength - storm dragon armour is like plate, but a little lighter and usable by Ogres.  The book of Burglary provides Swiftness. Invisibility is also tempting, but I don't think I need or want to follow that path.  The staircase to the Depths, which is available but highly dangerous. I will visit the Swamp first.  Good welcoming hydra, thankfully it's alone. edit: Apparently I am mistaken, it's just that players in water have troubles and hydras have faster movement.  The swamp drake (south) is trying to confuse us, but Ice Beasts and I resist poison and are thus immune to his mephitic breath.  After the hydra dies, everything else follows. I took a lot of damage though, this low AC/EV is really being a problem.  I'm sure there's a good balance reason why not all plants are weak to fire but I really wish they were. Shambling mangrove can tangle you in roots, reducing your EV and movement speed.  I'll keep my freedom, thanks. I think this is just a straitjacket.  I don't really know how I can bludgeon insubstantial things, but I'm glad I can.  Orcs in the Swamp? This can only mean one thing... (screenshot missing) Saint Roka is leading his flock to their doom. He has a lot of defense and melee skill and smites like an orc priest but more often, so I probably want to split up this pack and fight him alone.  I had a freezing cloud here, but my lindwurms have been melting it with their fire breath. Looks like an orc sorceror is here too, animating the dead. Roka is the big angry face behind the treeline.  Saint Roka got lost trying to walk around these trees, so I can rest up and deal with him alone now.  He cannot stand up to our onslaught, despite two wasted turns miscasting Freezing Cloud. One lindwurm is off hunting the straggling orcs.  Thorn hunters are pretty tough, they summon walls of plants behind you and between them and you, and then shoot you. The harpies and a freezing cloud help me squash it. That tile looks really weird too, editing this is the first time I've seen it - a rose with two stems making a circle around it?  If only that trove wanted floor junk like this wand of heal wounds instead of storm dragon armour.  Ashenzari letting me know about mimics.  On Swamp 5, this MiBe ghost corners me as I leave a dead end. Fortunately ghosts can't cleave, so I think I can swarm him with the Menagerie. It gets one good hit in, but now seems to be troubled.  I celebrate with chokos.  This place looks promising.  I peek through the wall, and that's looking like trouble. The 27-headed Lernaean hydra is standing on the rune, and I don't think I can risk having it next to me ever with this character.  while wandering around clearing the rest of the level I find this book -- it might be a sign, Mass Confusion should help with that group a lot.  I'm going to use a potion of invisibility (nothing in there can see invisible), open a hole in the trees with fire, then use a potion of brilliance and Mass Confusion and hope things kill each other. Swiftness should let me get away if it goes poorly.  Seems to be going ok. Swamp dragons (upper left) are not a big deal, OK melee and poisonous breath. The enemies pictured asleep (lower left) are probably not actually there, they're the ones I'm fighting.  Starving, but winning. This would be a good time for porridge, but I'll just use beef jerky.  And a wand of cold finishes it off.  And the reward!    State of the Ogre. I'm unsure what I want to be doing with skill training - could make Freezing Cloud or Mass Confusion more reliable, or amnesia one or both for say Shadow Creatures and Summon Demon, or just keep training Fighting - maybe Maces as well. rcfile The rest of my re-glyphing. code:code:code:rchandra fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Jul 7, 2014 |
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Jul 7, 2014 01:58
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PleasingFungus posted:Sublimation is probably going to end up without the chunk-sublimation effect sometime before 0.15 comes out Any suggestions on which spells to develop / abandon with the OgSu? http://pastebin.com/bdpXxQAP
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Jul 9, 2014 00:26
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Good quality elf rewards. One of the funny ways a murderhole can go wrong: demonologists can summon cacodemons who will happily use dig to bust it up.
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Jul 9, 2014 05:51
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pathetic little tramp posted:Know your place, reflection-lover: I regret that this character forgot to buy the Singing Sword before winning - Gong, Qazlal for more noise, Maxwell's for -Tele, and Vinestalker for no healwounds. http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/rchandra/morgue-rchandra-20140707-054935.txt Things rarely said: maybe I should have used the CPA to get spells.
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Jul 22, 2014 00:46
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An Og named Su - Part 8   Last time, I cleaned out the Swamp ending with Mass Confusion. This has left my spells in a bit of a mess, I really have too many L6 spells in different schools. I'm going to amnesia Freezing Cloud for now, despite its awesomeness, to try out Summon Forest, as requested.  The Spider's Nest. Thankfully I have poison resistance from a mutation, without it you take a bit more damage and can't eat corpses.  This gives me the "Forest" status, let's see how the dryad holds up.  This seems like a very slow spell, like Malign Gateway, since the dryad needs to slowly grow vines from the trees. I'm hoping that with more spellpower it makes the trees denser, getting them to hit things effectively might be tough as is. I assist with Mass Confusion and things get squished.  Rupert hits hard, berserks himself, and can shout at me to cause paralysis. This is a good time to swap my ring of flight for one of MR. I'm not going to curse the MR ring, my spells are mostly castable with the lesser magic boost, though a bit weaker.  He doesn't seem to be enjoying all the attention.  This little vault has a bunch of nice stuff on a teleport trap - I can't see the rest of the stuff so I'll have to deal with the trap.  I used a ring of teleport control to cancel the teleport. Other solutions are the Control Teleport spell, an amulet of stasis, Apportation, -Tele items, or being a Formic. My reward is a phial of floods, a fine item.  Torpor snails have an aura of slowness. They are flavoured to worship Chei, but Chei still rewards you for killing them . I draw the other enemies away to kill them while not being slowed.  And I summon a spire to kill the snail faster.  This is small as far as slaying goes, but it's still worth using. Unlike a resistance ring, slaying (also protection/evasion) works in almost every fight. Like weapon enchantments, there's just one number now for both accuracy and damage.  These uniques would probably be best solved with Freezing Cloud, which I no longer have. I don't have the space for Summon Forest, so I'll try to slow them then call friends.  Slowing didn't really work. I put my ring of MR on again, as Aizul can put me to sleep. Both of them like to blast me with poison conjurations.  I probably should have used a potion of haste instead of (or in addition to) might earlier. I use some heal wounds potions while continuing to fight, since I don't have a clear escape available.  The phial helps finish off Aizul. I'll use a fan of gales to help with Arachne.  Didn't die. Probably using 2 turns and 10 MP trying to slow them was bad, if I'd had more summons that would have probably been more effective.  Another newish summoning spell, Mana Viper. It summons a snake with an antimagic bite. Next time I'm around an amnesia scroll I'll replace Canine Familiar with it.  Gnarly. Emperor scorpions are big and tough but not fast, unless a moth of wrath is around just hitting them hard should be fine.  I'll stick with my MR robe for now, this isn't very special. "Curse" means it sometimes curses itself when I wear it, which would be convenient if Ashenzari doesn't block that.  Reached Spider:5. I have Flight memorized so I can get by the water safely.  And by safely, I mean, ouch. The ghost isn't that high level, but as a Deep Elf Conjurer it probably has nasty spells. Use x then v to look at it:  This is a nasty ghost, Orb of Destruction can do a huge amount of damage. If I didn't have the swamp rune (to open Vaults) I'd come by via another staircase, but there's not much to gain here, so no need to risk him blocking my retreat paths.  So it's off to the Vaults! Lots of tough humanoids to poke at my fleshy ogre belly. In fact it appears I'm sort of surrounded here.  These doors let me face those enemies one at a time, so it's no trouble.  I replaced Canines with Mana Vipers, and am trying them on this wizard.  This line is why Berserkers can easily get 15 runes without changing gods. The antimagic effect makes the enemy waste turns instead of casting spells. Seems like a good summon!  The vault sentinel makes noise and tries to mark me as a target for others. He just gets clubbed.  Summon Forest doesn't seem to be doing much in here, I look up its description in the learndb and find it wants rock walls to make trees. Vaults only has metal walls.  Still, 2 mana vipers, one vine, and I seem to crush the group easily enough.  This necromancer doesn't seem to mind burning his undead for me.  Lots of scary faces here, I should scry.  Norris the surfer can smite me and paralyse me, and Sojobo and his group can use lots of big conjurations and big weapons. This area seems not ideal, but if I'm not doing Vaults now my only other choice is Depths, which will probably be at least this bad at all times. Fortunately Norris is behind another wall, so maybe I can stairdance the others and beat them with my summons. Incidentally, I've started finding large rocks to replace javelins for throwing.  OK that didn't work out, he summoned elementals and I panicked, only screenshotting the aftermath. That was a lot of damage fast.  I try another staircase. This isn't much better, Jory the vampire can probably kill me in 2-4 hits with his spells and axe. I'll try using mana vipers and a potion of might, at least the terrain is better here.  That worked, hopefully this dragon provides armour for me. (It doesn't.) A Book of Necromancy provides Regeneration, though. I have no spell levels, so time to train more Spellcasting. It might also be time to amnesia some of my hexes, since I don't really want to train for more spellpower casting them can be wasting turns.  I open a door to Sojobo, and quaff a bunch of potions. Let's see if we can take him down.  Doorways are so strong. All those Tengu Reavers with their battlespheres didn't want to shoot through Sojobo.  The next ice dragon leaves a hide, now to just start finding enchant armour scrolls - I seem to recall that that was the last scroll found (with only acquirement still unknown), and I only found one.  The vault warden (red cape) is fairly tough and can seal doors/stairs (marked in green). It's always good to be able to teleport if he traps you in a bad place.  Nothing a club and 2 lindwurms can't smash.  No shortage of tough uniques here! Boris is a lich who doesn't stay dead - after I kill him here he can reappear on any later floor.  Uniques that I can outnumber and antimagic don't seem that tough, he barely scratched me - compare that to Sojobo.  I finally find enchant armour, good timing. Now the decision is whether to use the ice dragon armour or wait. My only sources of fire resistance are rings of fire, which is not ideal but can work. I will wear and curse the armour and transfer some Dodging skill to Armour.  Other than Mass Confusion, my spells are mostly still castable in IDA thanks to the ring of wizardry. I'll amnesia that now, replacing it with Phase Shift (+8 EV).  With my new armour (15 AC! it's like a Minotaur on D:4) I challenge Norris. We beat him up easily.  The ironbrand convoker wants to get his friends to help.  Their magic resistance is really bad, so it's easy to use a wand of paralysis or polymorph etc. to interrupt them.  I hear a bazaar, but Ashenzari tells me it's very far away (the yellow dot on the southwest of the map). In order to not risk missing it, I'll try a controlled teleport.  This Ogre cannot be stopped from finding a bargain! I drop a bunch of wands and such and go in. Let's see what we have:  Junk.  Cantrips has Apportation, Death Dispel Undead. Giving up on my IDA for Statue Form is an interesting option.  Mystery ring, and a teleport scroll to replace the one I used to get here. And a mystery book? I buy it.  More junk.  The ring is junk, but the book has two nice spells: Butterflies is good for blocking spaces, and Hydra is very offensively-minded. I'll get Summon Hydra once my skills are a bit better, possibly after Dispel Undead too.  Thanks, floorgod. Who needs acquirements?  An ogre mage hits me with Throw Flame, "burning me terribly" for 8 damage. I check the listed spellbooks to see what its big spells are, seems like it's invisiblity and teleport other (not a big deal) and fireball, which could hurt a lot. I put on my ring of fire to at least not be extra-vulnerable to it, then club it.  I forget Metabolic Englaciation for Dispel Undead now, in case of more scary ghosts as well as more Boris.   Another book shop, this one has two books that will be very nice for the endgame/extended game: Necronomicon for invincibility and full healing and a powerful summon, and Grand Grimoire for an assortment of big summoning spells.  Here I'm reminded that I started this game too long ago, by finding the entrance to the removed branch (Blade). Dungeon structure doesn't change when you update the game, sometimes leading to oddities. In another game I found a Depths entry on D:27, but it was a mimic.  Mennas, the Voice of Zin is a tongueless angel. He can't confuse me and I'm not undead, so it's just his big shield and big speed to deal with. He also casts Silence, so I want to make my summons quickly.  The purple aura is Silence. I don't have as many summons as I'd like, and Mennas confused the lindwurm.  Mennas gets distracted by the summons and I hit him in the back of the head.  An ogre mage takes advantage of my awful MR by banishing as its first action. This seems like a fine spot to examine the state of the ogre.  The Dodging -> Armour transfer is going well. I think its target was around 13 of each, after skill boost.  A fine collection of spells. I should remember to cast Phase Shift in fights now. rcfile code:
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Jul 27, 2014 20:48
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A! Nice updates, formic in extended should be different enough to be worth seeing. I was travelling and then the tournament started, hopefully I can get to a more regular posting schedule after that.
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Sep 6, 2014 17:50
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UncertainKitten posted:With Kiku miscat protection, I decide it's worth finally using, and start making my army. You're the best. I don't think anybody's talked about Simulacrum (old or new) yet, so you might want to add a bit on that as it's an unusual spell. I really should be able to get back to updates soon.
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Sep 27, 2014 15:47
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Pity you lost the rC right after finding Refrigeration. Unless this is a recent reversion, Depths shouldn't be rune-locked - only Vaults / Ziggurats / Zot (1/2/3). I'm really liking the chance to resist spells being shown. Are there any shenanigans available with Freezing Cloud plus Chei powers?
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Jan 8, 2015 05:53
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Ring of Ice / Staff of Cold do double duty because of Refrigeration, I'm pretty willing to be rF- before swaps as an Ice Elementalist if I have that (most fire-using enemies will just die to my double-enhanced Refrigeration / Bolt of Cold quickly). Fannar is the best enemy to find since he'll give you one of those and an rC robe.
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Jan 10, 2015 17:13
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marshalljim posted:Do the online Crawl servers delete save files for low-level characters that haven't been played in a while? They don't, but saves are separate for each stable version, so you'll have to choose the version you started it in (if that version isn't offered, then you're out of luck). If you started in trunk you should get a prompt to upgrade.
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May 13, 2015 17:35
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