Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup questions/thread

[Castanova]

ARGGHHHH, just killed my second promising Fire Elementalist in a row in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY! (stupidly trying to stair hop against a swarm of strong mobs). If I could get my head out of my ass, I can tell that a DEFE is really super strong. The damage output on this build is ridiculous.

Edit: basically, I just turn off everything except Spellcasting until Sticky Flame is less less than Choko food. At that point, nothing can touch me except for Imps (lol) and swarms of enemies that get the jump on me and I have no escape means.

 

[MisterStone]

Holy crap, just got the new version and man things have changed.

They changed the Call Canine Familliar spell so that you never summon hostile canines anymore, and lemme just say that this revolutionized the whole Summon Wizard build I tried to play with before.

So I found that Ogres make very good summoners- they have a very low cost to improve spellcasting skill (90) which means lots of spell points. Their costs for various spellcasting schools suck BUT, the nice thing about being a summoner is you only need to be very good at one school (summoning)! Also Ogres get lots of HP and can fight fairly well with clubs, so they can bash the fuck out of things alongside their summoned hordes.

In the old game I found that it also works to run an Ogre Wizard with the summoning book- you basically rely on summon small mammals and summon canine familiar for all of your asskicking needs, and get a couple of good utility spells (deflect missile and blink) along with it. Problem was, the canine familiar spell could be really nasty, but it also backfired a lot and summoned hostile dogs OFTEN. Not just sometimes, but like 1/3rd of the time or something... it was bullshit.

Now, however, Canine Familiar never makes hostile doggies.

So in my second game since trying out the new version, my Ogre Wiz (summoning) is kicking major ass. I only have SSA and CCF, plus repel missiles and blink. I found TWO, count 'em, TWO rings of magical power. And then I found a staff of summoning! Also I got some backup gats- a wand of fireballs and a wand of draining, as well as some nice low-level branded weapons. I am on D Level 10 now, and I just walk around as the leader of my wolfpack- wolves, giant rottweilers (wardogs), hounds etc basically just mob anything and rip it to shreads within a couple of turns. The fuckers surrounded and tore apart a hill giant without me even having to twitch a muscle! I have like 30 MP and the dog summons last long enough that I can regen full MP and there will still be a few hanging around. Since 99% of the time I only cast this one spell I have like a 8 in summoning and a 8 or 9 in spellcasting. I joined Vehumet, so I am assured more awesome badass summoning spells in the future.

Early dungeon levels have been a breeze for this build in this version.

:twisted:

*edit* actually its 40+ mana with both rings on.

*edit* the dogs just tore a troll apart in like 2 rounds. Bwahahahah...

 

[Malakal]

Summoners are nice and powerful but You get only 50% exp for the kills of the summoned creatures and that means that, especially with ogres, You will fall behind the rising difficulty level.

And powerful single target spells? (like crystal spear?) Not really worth it, at the same cost You could firestorm that lich. Guess what works better.

 

[Castanova]

On the subject of branded weapons, I've just started messing around with some melee builds and I have a question: are all brands ID'd immediately upon equipping the weapon? Or only some brands (like, I dunno, only "flaming" but not "chopping")?

Which weapons potentially have brands? Only "runed" and "glowing" weapons? Is there a difference between "runed" and "glowing"?

Such nub questions

 

[Zomg]

They changed the Call Canine Familliar spell so that you never summon hostile canines anymore, and lemme just say that this revolutionized the whole Summon Wizard build I tried to play with before.

That spell is so frustrating. Raising the power of it can get you some powerful dogs like wargs and war dogs but the probabilities are such that it's pretty easy to blow like 27 mana and have nothing but jackals to show for it. CCF has gotta be the most frustating possible way to clear lair. But it *can* clear the lair, hydras and death yaks and all.

If you kill some Cyclops an Ogre can grab their large rocks for throwing, they hit extremely hard. The throwing skill also governs the effectiveness of blowdarts (there are a lot of special new darts lik sleep, confusion, etc. beyond just curare now). Ogres have a good throwing aptitude and it might help you grab some of the kills from your summons so you get full XP.

Even 50% XP isn't as bad as it sounds since "character power as a function of total XP" is logarithmic.

On the subject of branded weapons, I've just started messing around with some melee builds and I have a question: are all brands ID'd immediately upon equipping the weapon? Or only some brands (like, I dunno, only "flaming" but not "chopping")?

Which weapons potentially have brands? Only "runed" and "glowing" weapons? Is there a difference between "runed" and "glowing"?

All brands auto-ID on equip, all branded weapons/ego armor will be glowing/runed/dyed/whatever and I'm 99% sure glowing/dyed/runed/shiny/etc. don't make any difference.

 

[MisterStone]

On the subject of branded weapons, I've just started messing around with some melee builds and I have a question: are all brands ID'd immediately upon equipping the weapon? Or only some brands (like, I dunno, only "flaming" but not "chopping")?

Which weapons potentially have brands? Only "runed" and "glowing" weapons? Is there a difference between "runed" and "glowing"?

Such nub questions

Glowing and runed both always have plusses and/or minuses. I don't know that either one is necessarily more likely to be branded. Also weapons can have plusses or minuses without being glowing or runed. And I think that rarely unmarked items can be branded. P. Sure armor can anyway. It used to be like that at one point anyway.

 

[Raghar]

They changed the Call Canine Familliar spell so that you never summon hostile canines anymore, and lemme just say that this revolutionized the whole Summon Wizard build I tried to play with before.

These bastards, they simplified it.

What about summon scorpions? Are they still occasionally pissed? I recall when I summoned scorpions 5 appeared and two were angry. Then after these non angry killed these angry they attacked and slaughtered the enemies as well.

 

[Zomg]

Question about treasure trove portals: If I do the thing where you lock the trove with the imp, and I later manage to get the item it wants, do I still have to pay the gold after I bring the item? I got lucky and all it wants is a crap spellbook I dropped a few dlevels away. Anyone know?

Edit - I went ahead and tried it out of curiosity and no, you don't have to pay the gold. When I went into the portal there was a player ghost in it (playing on akrasiac) that was too close and too buff for my slinger and the first thing it did was haste itself so I had to duck back out. I can only assume that the guy intentionally died in a trove to troll other players with his ghost since you're locked to the level you died on AFAIK. Or possibly he was a victim of another such dude. Pretty cool. Luckily the trove just had a bunch of non-artifact rings in it that I didn't need.

 

[betamin]

LOL that's some bad intent, maybe he got in hungry or poisoned or something like that.

 

[Zomg]

I actually remember seeing a couple of deaths in troves in the recent games thing on akrasiac - eliciting a ??? from me prior to this - so I'm thinking it's tradition.

My halfling hunter's offense fukkin' blows. Okawaru loves to rain slings and one-handed swords with -6 damage bonuses when he isn't giving you +0 animal skins.

 

[MisterStone]

They changed the Call Canine Familliar spell so that you never summon hostile canines anymore, and lemme just say that this revolutionized the whole Summon Wizard build I tried to play with before.

These bastards, they simplified it.

What about summon scorpions? Are they still occasionally pissed? I recall when I summoned scorpions 5 appeared and two were angry. Then after these non angry killed these angry they attacked and slaughtered the enemies as well.

Yeah, I agree, seems like the dogs ought to be pissed off at least sometimes. OR, maybe a critical failure should summon pomeranians or something. Damn, I gotta make this a suggestion.

 

[Zomg]

My halfling hunter's offense fukkin' blows. Okawaru loves to rain slings and one-handed swords with -6 damage bonuses when he isn't giving you +0 animal skins.

Oka then gave him a +10,+3 sling of speed with some resists and shit on it and gifted a bunch of +4 silver bullets. With haste up, a ring of slaying, and bracers of archery he obliterated two ancient liches on vault:8 in like 20 total segments (about the time it takes a new character to swing a big weapon one time, or the time it takes to go two steps at normal speed).

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Holy shit, this game is awesome.

 

[Zomg]

I know right

high 5

Goddamn I've always had a cloak of conservation from Nicola when I've started the endgame previously, the yellow draconians have blown like 8 AC off of me without either the cloak or an amulet of resist corrosion If you ever get the version of DL27 with a castle full of draconians in it just skip that shit, not worth all the fucking death drake miasma rot.

Hope I can still hack Zot 5 in flimsy mode, god forbid there's a serious player ghost or something.

Edit - Ok, stuff I think:

If you use the amulet of faith to farm gifts from Trog or Oka, you should take it off a good while before you start your final dive to rebuild your piety back up after the hit from removing it. My slinger never got back to haste piety in Zot when he switched to an amulet of resist mutation on Zot 1 - luckily I was just able to cast it at that point, but if I hadn't been enchantment whoring I'd have had to go back to hive to farm piety or something.

Anyway, 3-rune win with the slinger. I need an idea for a 15 rune + ziggurat build now that's not transmuter-based.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I just realized centaurs (and presumably nagas) wear barding in place of boots, not body armor like I'd assumed. Now I'm itching to try a naga of some flavour worshipping Chei. +15 all stats would go a looooong way towards hungerless casting, excellent stealth and some solid melee damage. I'm thinking dip into translocate for getting out of sticky situations later on.

I just need to figure out how to get to the fucking temple without dying to the first enemy with a branded weapon. Being slow SUCKS. Tried ice elementalist but that fails hard vs the undead. Venom would be in the same boat.

 

[Zomg]

Icicle does a lot of unresistable damage. It's completely possible to brute force through the nastier fast zombies/skeletons like wyverns with it unless they're seriously out of depth.

I don't really see the appeal of Chei, seems like the stuff that would be a serious help kicks in late, like slouch, while you have to gimp your speed past normal escape-ability right off. The resists don't matter much for an extremely long time. The big stat bonuses come after you've totally crushed your movement speed. On top of that haste is a tremendous help and insurance policy even in potion/wand form.

Basically seems like a god for character that can do an easy no-god 3-rune run anyway, like ice/fire elementalists, and they get to be really strong for the last 1/4th of the game. I'd rather either have help right away like Vehumet or Kiku or Sif Muna or just play Nemelex for insano "late game god" power.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Part of the appeal is that you gain your piety very quickly; I got a SPRIGGAN to the 2nd pip with him before the lair, and you can really only gain from bats at that point. With a naga your piety should sky rocket and stay up there for the rest of the game, even spamming your abilities. And Chei has the best 'insurance policy' skill in the game, effectively an unresistable banishment on anything capable of moving.

And besides, if you can't escape damned near everything with your movement speed, you might as well be slow as fuck. What am I going to outrun with a naga? Snails?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Got an ice elementalist off the ground, luckily found a Chei altar on the 2nd level, had full piety after the first level of Lair (Though only 3 equipment slots, found a cloak in the lair but now I'm going through the snake pits and still no barding, ugh.)

Found a nice artifact falchion +7/+2 that boosts stealth and resists negative energy, and +3 ac, and is slicing. Lets me use berserk, and just equipping it gives a message that I shouldn't wield such a speedy weapon, but if it's screwing my piety I'm not noticing it. Also lowers strength by 3 but, lol @ that. I have 29 int/dex right now, and 17 str even wielding that sword. Been fooling around with a vampiric scimitar, but I think I'll switch back, the hp drain just isn't nice enough. Maybe later if my skill gets high enough that I can melee for a fuckton, right now the only things that hurt me hurt me way faster than that sword hurts them, so I just icicle them anyways. Artifact ring of 9 mp and resist cold and a sabre with 2 fire resist means I'm well covered vs either element if need be.

Found an assortment of books, so I have dispel undead and blink now, and just picked up mephitic cloud, which I'm hoping will train my air high enough to use freezing cloud. I'm pretty tanky with ice armor on and level 4 spells are basically hungerless, but not sure where I should go next. Orc mines I guess, maybe they'll have barding .

I had a real sticky spot early in the lair when I woke up a bunch of yaks, and then tried to use the OHFUCKSAVEME ability, only to realize you need invocations for that, which I hadn't touched all game. Oops. Scroll of fear saved my ass and I've been training it up with slouch since then, though it's still at shitty success rate (But doesn't cost if you fail, so at least is an option now at poor instead of cruddy.) Which, incidently kicks ass. Room wide non elemental damage that rapes harder vs faster enemies? Yes please. I can clear a room full of nagas with 3 casts (And the casters drop in 2.) I should do the hive next. Although I guess it'd rape orcs and elves good too, or all those speedy ass weapons in the hall of blades.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Nevermind. I just died because a floating eye paralyzed me in the middle of a shitton of things that shouldn't have been able to scratch me otherwise. Yay. Fuck you crawl. Fuck you.

 

[Malakal]

Oh yes, floating eyes... They are one of those things that make this roguelike really really bad. Irresistable damage from spells (ie crystal spear) and irresistable abilities like torment and paralyze are complete bullshit. I dont like grinding but please let me die when its my fault not when I cant do anything about that...

 

[Zomg]

I always walk back out of sight range when I see a giant eyeball and shout to pull in all the other monsters in the area (using "tt") if there's a crowd around. The eye is very slow-moving so you have plenty of time to kill the other stuff before you have to deal with it by itself. If you just got gang-banged at the bottom of a staircase or something you should start carrying a scroll of fear which is basically the stair-death counter. The eyes are also really oblivious so if you have any stealth at all they usually don't notice you for several turns anyway. Stealth is such a subtle but constant ass-saver that I never turn it off anymore.

Has anybody messed with the portal projectile spell at all? I was wondering if it takes your skill into account for damage, e.g. if you have an ogre with 27 throwing do you get your skill damage bonus for a PP'd large rock?

 

[Castanova]

I got a Naga Ice Elementalist to Zot:5 and died to my own stupidity. Before that, he was a very strong character. I don't think the early game is really all that hard with it either considering the ice armor and Throw Icicle (which I was STILL using to kill many end-game monsters).

On the flip side of the coin is my recent attempt at a Naga Venom Mage. In the early game, Sting is like a level 1 version of Sticky Flame. I.e., it's awesome at first but once I got to the Lair I realized the Venom Mage is really quite bad. Poison is useless against a lot of dangerous enemies like Spiny Frogs and Mephitic Cloud doesn't confuse Hydras. I quickly gathered up some branded weapons and learned Mystic Blast and started training them up with the plan to transition out of Poison Magic as my primary killing machine but then I died... not out of stupidity or bad luck but out of sheer boredom with the character build. What's the point of being a Venom Mage if you don't even use Poison Magic? Spellcasting was leveling up so slowly that even at cLvl 15, Poison Arrow was still at Honeycomb.

 

[Zomg]

Yeah, agreed. They should shitcan venom bolt (they made it level 5 with a mediocre shot of unresistable damage and really shitty accuracy because they give it credit for poisoning (which is 1 mana sting's job) and for being a bolt, meaning it penetrates multiple enemies, which doesn't matter at all to a venom mage with mephitic cloud for crowd control) and give them a level 4 spell that's like icicle and let them cast curare and acid clouds at higher levels (cool cone clouds like a draconian's poison breath, too, not gay 3x3 squares like mephitic cloud).

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Fuuuuuuu-

My spriggan assassin just got pwned by a bunch of gnolls. I'm pretty terrible at this game so far, but he was my best character yet. Made it all the way to the tender age of level 6 before getting killed by a thrown orcish club. :<

It's really fun to kite people with the blowgun though.

 

[Zomg]

Everyone in the thread seems drawn to spriggans but me for some reason. I've played like one spriggan game since I started. Getting to start the game with super speed just seems like such a peculiar gimmick to me that I don't wanna mess with my normal-speed habits by learning to abuse it.