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-Crawl- YAFVP Bronco the MiMo [Very Long]

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ste...@gmail.com

unread,

Jul 11, 2006, 7:24:01 PM7/11/06

I finally did it! Special thanks to Johan Strand, Elethiomel, Erik
Piper and nyra for advice in both my recent threads. Erik's posts also
help me quite a bit before I even started playing--I decided to
emphasize Auxiliary Unarmed and Evasion based on posts of his. Also,
thanks for the great patch Darshan...without it the game would be
unplayable.

I got the monkey off my back and ascended with the Orb... I think that
with my last few characters I mastered some of the strategy and tactics
of the game(beyond the basics of fighting one monster at a time
whenever possible, character planning, etc...) that I had been missing
before:

1. Don't be afraid to use scarce resources. Potions of Heal Wounds,
Might and Speed, Attack wands, Scrolls of Teleport and Blinking and
even Piety(For invocations) are no good to you when you're dead. That
said, Scrolls of Blinking are rare and powerful, so you should use them
only as a last resort. There is a fine line between conserving your
resources and squandering them that must be walked to be successful.

2. When you get in trouble, remove your hands from the keyboard, look
through your inventory, think through the situation and head off
trouble before you're under 50% HP. I found that changing my hp_warning
from 50 to 25 helped a lot in this regard(Thanks to Eric Piper for this
suggestion - hp_warning = 50 in the init.txt file in your crawl
directory).

3. Targetting and Macros. Learn them and love them. They make the game
much more enjoyable when you use them effectively and thus you are less
likely to make a careless mistake. Example: Set a Macro to Ea+ and it
will automatically target the nearest enemy with the first spell in
your rod. Another good use of macros is equipment swapping-- macros for
RgPm and RmPg swapped in my Amulet of Resist Mutation or Gourmand.

4. Learn from your past mistakes. Every Stupid Death is a lesson. After
awhile, you learn to run from a crowd of orcs with priest support or to
avoid the tomb with an Int of 5(see my last character HDGl!).

Okay, on to the commented/abridged dump. I hope it's not too verbose
and I hope my comments will be helpful for players looking for their
first victory.

Dungeon Crawl version 4.0.0 beta 26 character file.

Bronco the Swordmaster

Race : Minotaur Res.Fire : + + . See Invis. : .
Class : Monk Res.Cold : x . . Warding : .

1. Minotaurs are my favorite race for fighter characters. Their main
features are skill excellent aptitudes across the board(70 Fighting and
Weapon Skills, 80 Dodging and Armour, 80 Unarmed Fighting and 90
Crossbows) and Horns! Horns are one of the best racial abilities and
you can build a whole character around the extra unarmed attacks. They
are poor at Magic Skills and Evocations and fair with Invocations, but
because they are so efficient at the primary skills, you can afford to
pump some XP into Spellcasting, Divinations, Enchantments, Air,
Invocations and Evocations to complement your melee.

2. I chose Monk as my starting class because they start with a solid
skill set--Fighting, Dodging and Unarmed were all skills I planned to
use for the entire game. I highly recommend MiMo's for players looking
for their first ascension.

Worship : Elyvilon Life Prot.: . . . Conserve : .

3. Hands down my favorite god. I would have died in Vault: 8 several
times without greater healing. In particular I remember being
surrounded by Stone and Frost Giants with no repel missiles and being
taken down to 27 Health. 2 Greater Healings and a speedy retreat
allowed me to continue my quest for the orb. Ely is a bit of a pain to
get going, but no other god grants an ability comparable to Greater
Healing in sheer ass-saving ability. Again, I highly recommend Ely for
those looking for their first victory--even spellcasters might want to
consider him, especially if they start with Sif Muna to obtain some
critical books first.

Level : 27 Res.Poison: . Res.Corr. : .
Exp : 1361466 Res.Elec. : . Gourmand : .

Sust.Abil.: + Prev.Telep.: +
Spls.Left : 23 Res.Mut. : + Ctrl.Telep.: .
Gold : 1328 Res.Slow : . Levitation : .
Clarity : . Ctrl.Flight: .
HP : 253
MP : 37
Str : 20 Weapon : +8,+7 orc scimitar (slice)
Int : 6 Armour : +2 dragon armour
Dex : 22 Shield :
AC : 30 Helmet :
Evasion : 15 Cloak : +2 cloak
Shield : 0 Gloves : +2 pair of gloves
Boots : +2 pair of boots (run)
Play time : 16:37:30 Amulet : amulet of resist mutation
Turns : 218364 Ring : +6,+5 ring of slaying
Ring : ring "Dodequ"

You escaped.
You worship Elyvilon.
Elyvilon is exalted by your worship.
You are full.

Inventory:
Hand weapons
e - a +8,+7 orcish scimitar of slicing (weapon) (1348 gold)

4. This weapon was much maligned in the pre-YAFVP thread. Although it
was suboptimal, my auxiliary unarmed attacks and rings of slaying
overshadowed my weapon's base and ego characteristics. I killed all but
the toughest monsters in the game in about 1-3 turns at the end. In the
future, I will be more patient when looking for my endgame weapon
instead of settling for the first adequate weapon. I found two +0
katanas in the Lair after the scimitar was already at +7,+7. I used
about 9 more scrolls to get it to +8,+7...if I had known how hard it is
to get to +9,+9, I would have just enchanted and vorpalized a katana
from scratch(13/+4/130% is much better than my scimitar's 11/+1/140%).

Armour
o - a +2 pair of gloves (worn) (138 gold)
V - a +2 cloak (worn) (135 gold)
W - a +2 dragon armour (worn) (1467 gold)
Z - a +2 pair of boots of running (worn) (245 gold)

5. I noticed the Dragon Armour in a shop for 1200 gold early on and
that motivated my decision to go the light heavy armour
route--otherwise I would have stuck with a pure dodging route and gone
with a robe of resistance or(preferably) an elven scale mail of fire
resistance if I could find one.

6. The boots of running are obviously one of the best items in the game
and they somewhat made up for the complete lack of artifact equipment,
hats or magical cloaks/gloves. I would have killed for some cold
resistance though...I lost many potions(and HP!) to cold attacks
throughout the game.

Magical devices
a - a wand of lightning (3) (105 gold)
i - a wand of fire (5) (90 gold)
F - a wand of digging (6) (66 gold)
G - a wand of hasting (8) (117 gold)
H - a wand of teleportation (3) (48 gold)
X - a wand of cold (7) (108 gold)

7. I only used Hasting in the endgame, but wands featured prominently
in my early game strategy. I used them to take out fleeing or dangerous
enemies.

Jewellery
b - an amulet of resist mutation (around neck) (210 gold)
l - an amulet of the gourmand (245 gold)

8. I found the amulet of the gourmand before the lair... Absolutely one
of the best items in the game, especially for a food heavy god like
Elyvilon. I kept the "oRM on for the entire game from the moment I
found it... bad mutations are deadly.

v - the ring "Dodequ" (left hand) (238 gold)
(You bought it in a shop on level 7 of the Elven Halls)
This ring protects its wearer from the loss of their strength,
dexterity
and intelligence.
It protects you from magic.
It prevents most forms of teleportation.

A - a +6,+5 ring of slaying (right hand) (1050 gold)

9. I found this on D: 16 along with my first attack rod! I wore it for
the entire game except for the slime pits when I swapped it out for the
=of Robustness. Not much more to say except that it transformed me into
a killing machine and was a catalyst for the victory.

D - the amulet of Ug Pitihim (567 gold)
(You found it on level 6 of the Slime Pits)
This amulet protects the armour and weaponry of its wearer from
corrosion
caused by acids, although not infallibly so.
It affects your dexterity (+2).
It makes you susceptible to fire.
It insulates you from electricity.
It protects you from magic.

10. This was a very serendipitous discovery. Without it I would have
had to wear Storm Dragon Armour into Zot, because I had no other source
of electricity resistance and I can hardly imagine how nasty those
electric golems are without it. With this equipped, electric golems
were a piece of cake.

J - a ring of teleport control (294 gold)
K - a ring of poison resistance (210 gold)
P - a +5 ring of evasion (420 gold)

11. I used this for the majority of the game from the time I found it,
but later I realized that

U - a +0,+6 ring of slaying (210 gold)

is more effective and I used the dual rings of slaying in the end game.
+6,+11 from ring slots combined with multiple attacks per turn shredded
every monster in the game. Most died in one hit at the end. I found it
in one of the four labrynths.

Magical staves
d - a rod of destruction [fire] (250 gold)
(You acquired it on level 27 of the Dungeon)

12. I hardly used this... the inaccuracy, magma, cold rod was superior.

h - a rod of summoning (250 gold)
(You acquired it on level 5 of the Vaults)

13. Never once used. Ely isn't kind to summoners.

q - a rod of warding (150 gold)
(You acquired it on level 4 of the Swamp)

14. Talk about serendipity! Right before I attempted the Slime Pits, I
looked through all the shops in the dungeon to see if there were any
items that might help me. Surprise! The Swamp Shop had a ? of
acquirement(my 6th in the game--#1 yielded a thick staff even tho my
Evocations were at 4 and spellcasting at 0 and #2 yielded striking) for
1050 gold. I read the scroll and the rest is history. IMO, this is the
best rod in the game. Deflect Missiles is incredibly useful and without
it the Slime Pits(Acid Blobs) and Zot would have been a pain in the
ass.

w - a rod of destruction [inacc,magma,cold] (250 gold)
(You found it on level 16 of the Dungeon)

15. Very nice...found it at the same time as I found +6,+5 ring of
slaying. I didn't abuse it like I would if I were playing a character
with better Evocations aptitude, but it was useful for the entire game
for killing fleeing monsters and dangerous ranged attackers like
electric eels, Nagas, centaurs/yaktaurs, giants and especially
elves(you don't want to give a demonologist time to summon 1's). If I
hadn't found it, I would have relied on a +2,+2 crossbow(also found on
D: 16 lol) for those duties.

Orbs of Power
S - the Orb of Zot (250000 gold)

16. Zot was surprisingly easy. I was reduced to 50% hitpoints twice,
but greater healing fixed me up in a jiffy. I used Detect Monsters and
Traps liberally along with deflect missiles. It didn't hurt that I was
playing very carefully for fear of losing my character except one point
when I slaughtered several dragons and orb guardians using only
auxiliary unarmed attacks because I forgot to unequip my rod of
warding. Even then I only fell to 184 HP.

Miscellaneous
j - a silver rune of Zot (10000 gold)

17. By far the toughest rune to get. I very nearly died here even with
Ely's help. I exhausted most of my piety(lost even medium healing, not
to mention Restoration and Greater Healing) and all of my scrolls of
blinking just to make it out a lot. Ranged attackers were killing me
because I was forced to wear Storm Dragon Armour and I did not yet have
even repel missiles. Stone, Frost and Fire Giants+Yaktaur Captains
nearly had me R.I.P.--at one point I was down to 27 HP.

t - a decaying rune of Zot (10000 gold)

18. Trivial...I was never in danger here. I used unarmed for the Hydras
and wore a +2 Leather Armour of Poison Resistance the whole way. Too
bad I did this after the snake pits or I would have found the katanas
early enough to make use of them.

N - a slimy rune of Zot (10000 gold)

19. I played very cautiously and always focused on killing the floating
eyes here because I lost perhaps my 3rd or 4th best character ever to
an acid blob ambush. Deflect missiles carried the day here and I
improved my skills quite with all the high XP monsters.

T - a serpentine rune of Zot (10000 gold)

20. I am a bit of an odd duck. I usually do the Snake Pits as my first
branch. I was already pretty buff at this point with the rings of
slaying and evasion and I cut through the Nagas in 1-3 turns each. If I
ever got in trouble, I used medium healing and I was out of it.

You have 14662 experience left.

Skills:
+ Level 20 Fighting
* Level 27 Long Blades

21. I planned to use Long Blades from the start because they work well
with auxiliary unarmed. However, if I had found a good 1 or 1.5 handed
weapon early on I would have gone with it. Do Maces, Polearms or Axes
have good weapons to go with Unarmed?

- Level 2 Crossbows
- Level 3 Darts
- Level 2 Throwing

22. I used blowgun+poisoned needles extensively early on(as I always do
whenever I find a blowgun). I found a +2 Crossbow and started working
on these for my ranged attack, but I ditched it when I found the first
attack rod.

- Level 15 Armour
- Level 14 Dodging

23. Originally planned on a pure evasion route, but I switched to the
light heavy armour route when I found the dragon armour. My Armour
skill took forever to increase becausse I was investing skill points
aggressively in spellcasting, invocations, evocations. It was still at
14 on Zot 4, so I sat around eating until I got it to 15 before I
entered Zot 5.

- Level 2 Stealth
- Level 2 Stabbing
+ Level 21 Unarmed Combat

24. Auxiliary unarmed is great. 'Nuff said.

- Level 5 Spellcasting
- Level 7 Enchantments
- Level 7 Divinations
- Level 12 Invocations

25. Just high enough to use Greater Healing at "Very Good".

- Level 16 Evocations

You have 23 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

Your Spells Type Success
Level
a - Detect Creatures Divination Great 2
b - Detect Traps Divination Great 2

26. Isn't it odd that the two best spells in the game are simple
detection spells? I used these extensively in Slime Pits and Zot.

e - Repel Missiles Air/Enchantment Good 2
g - Silence Air/Enchantment Fair 3

27. I never used it, but I could cast it at good before I lost 1 point
of int.

Mutations & Other Weirdness
You are dopey (Int -1).
Your vision is a little blurry.

28. From an orb of fire because I had the electric resistance amulet
swapped in. At that point the game was in hand, but I equipped the
artifact ring of sustain abilities for the trip back--I wasn't about to
lose a second straight powerhouse character to stupidity.

Last Messages

Are you sure you want to leave the Dungeon?
[Y]es or [N]o only, please.
Are you sure you want to leave the Dungeon?
You have escaped!

#.........######'#'.......
#.........# #...........
########### #...........
#...........
############...........
#.........##..........#
#.........#........####
#.........#...##...# #
#.....@...'...##...# #
#.........#...#.#######
#.........#...#.# #....
#.........#...#.# #.###
#.........#####.# #.#..
########### #.###.###
#........
#.###.##.
#........

Vanquished Creatures
2 ancient liches

29. Those are pretty scary if you don't get to them quickly, but with
two rings of slaying I dropped them in 2 hits or so.

An orb of fire (Zot:5)

30. Not as scary as advertised.

A royal jelly (Slime:6)

31. WTF. Why so high in the kill list? It went down in 3 turns without
even damaging me.

A Killer Klown (Zot:5)

32. Cake.

3 curse skulls

33. Bolt of inaccuracy took care of them... but I have a healthy
respect for them as they've killed promising characters before.

3 titans (Vault:8)
37 stone giants
2 stone giants (shapeshifter)
3 frost giants
3 frost giants

34. Scariest monsters in the game... they were nearly the death of me.

Norris (D:24)
Louise (D:25)
Francis (Snake:3)
Maud (Swamp:5)
Wayne (Snake:5)
Frances (Swamp:3)
Rupert (Snake:3)
Duane (D:24)
Xtahua (Crypt:1)
Margery (Snake:5)
Jessica (D:3)
Ijyb (D:8)
Blork the orc (D:10)
Joseph (D:15)
Harold (Swamp:5)

35. Jessica and Ijyb posed the most danger... I took them out with a
blowgun. Sigmund, Xtahua, Erolchka and Boris are usually the scariest
uniques.

A minotaur (shapeshifter) (Vault:2)
4 minotaurs (Lab)
The ghost of Morris the Ruffian, a weakling Mi Mo (D:3)

36. I locked horns with 6 other Minotaurs in this game...by far the
most I've ever encountered. The labrynths were pretty fruitful,
providing several useful spellbooks and the +0,+6 = of slaying.

Grand Total: 3873 creatures vanquished

Summary: I'm glad to have a win under my belt, although I think I was
lucky to find several key pieces of equipment and I definitely
powergamed Bronco with utmost efficiency to utilize all the best items
and skills. I think for my next character, I'll attempt a GhFi with a
different god and weapon. Thanks for reading!

Elethiomel

unread,

Jul 11, 2006, 9:06:47 PM7/11/06

Okay. Trying for a second reply. Darn my news server and its fickleness.

Congratulations on your win!

ste...@gmail.com wrote:
> I finally did it! Special thanks to Johan Strand, Elethiomel, Erik
> Piper and nyra for advice in both my recent threads. Erik's posts also
> help me quite a bit before I even started playing--I decided to
> emphasize Auxiliary Unarmed and Evasion based on posts of his. Also,
> thanks for the great patch Darshan...without it the game would be
> unplayable.

Yay! I've apparently cottoned on enough that my advice is actually
useful to somebody.

Erik's advice, on the other hand, is useful to everybody. He always has
something relevant to contribute, either from personal experience,
source diving, or seemingly magical Crawl intuition.

Nyra and Johand Strandell both have better advice than me. I don't know
if I belong in this exalted company.

> I got the monkey off my back and ascended with the Orb...

Again, Congratulations!

> 1. Don't be afraid to use scarce resources. Potions of Heal Wounds,
> Might and Speed, Attack wands, Scrolls of Teleport and Blinking and
> even Piety(For invocations) are no good to you when you're dead. That
> said, Scrolls of Blinking are rare and powerful, so you should use them
> only as a last resort. There is a fine line between conserving your
> resources and squandering them that must be walked to be successful.

This is the most difficult thing to learn in Crawl, IMO.

> 2. When you get in trouble, remove your hands from the keyboard, look
> through your inventory, think through the situation and head off
> trouble

This is a lesson worth learning for every roguelike.

> A - a +6,+5 ring of slaying (right hand) (1050 gold)
>
> 9. I found this on D: 16 along with my first attack rod! I wore it for
> the entire game except for the slime pits when I swapped it out for the
> =of Robustness. Not much more to say except that it transformed me into
> a killing machine and was a catalyst for the victory.

A very nice combination of stuff to find for a fighter/evoker!

> q - a rod of warding (150 gold)
> (You acquired it on level 4 of the Swamp)
>
> 14. Talk about serendipity! Right before I attempted the Slime Pits, I
> looked through all the shops in the dungeon to see if there were any
> items that might help me. Surprise! The Swamp Shop had a ? of
> acquirement(my 6th in the game--#1 yielded a thick staff even tho my
> Evocations were at 4 and spellcasting at 0 and #2 yielded striking) for
> 1050 gold. I read the scroll and the rest is history. IMO, this is the
> best rod in the game. Deflect Missiles is incredibly useful and without
> it the Slime Pits(Acid Blobs) and Zot would have been a pain in the
> ass.

Both my winners had spell-Deflect Missiles available and reliable in the
endgame. It's very, very good. (I also had a MDFi with Rod-DM who burned
to a crisp in Gehenna. I don't remember why he stepped on a lava square,
it was probably confusion and careless play. After that I quit Crawl for
quite a while.)

> Orbs of Power
> S - the Orb of Zot (250000 gold)

Both my winners were very paranoid about leaving this behind.

> Miscellaneous
> j - a silver rune of Zot (10000 gold)
>
> 17. By far the toughest rune to get. I very nearly died here even with
> Ely's help. I exhausted most of my piety(lost even medium healing, not
> to mention Restoration and Greater Healing) and all of my scrolls of
> blinking just to make it out a lot. Ranged attackers were killing me
> because I was forced to wear Storm Dragon Armour and I did not yet have
> even repel missiles. Stone, Frost and Fire Giants+Yaktaur Captains
> nearly had me R.I.P.--at one point I was down to 27 HP.

Yes. Vaults: 8 is a nasty, nasty place, especially considering the time
a character usually finds it. An unspoiled descent to V: 8 is scarier by
an order of magnitude.

> Are you sure you want to leave the Dungeon?
> [Y]es or [N]o only, please.
> Are you sure you want to leave the Dungeon?
> You have escaped!

Surprisingly many VPs have this "please use capital letters only" thing
in their last messages. =)

> Summary: I'm glad to have a win under my belt, although I think I was
> lucky to find several key pieces of equipment and I definitely
> powergamed Bronco with utmost efficiency to utilize all the best items
> and skills. I think for my next character, I'll attempt a GhFi with a
> different god and weapon. Thanks for reading!

Again, congratulations! Good luck with your GhFi. You've inspired me to
try a MiMo converting to Trog (because I want to go spell-less, and Trog
is an excellent way to enforce that).

Here's to your winner! *clinks glass*
--
A good signature is a concise and original summary of personality. This
is not a good signature.

Elethiomel

unread,

Jul 11, 2006, 9:29:55 PM7/11/06

Elethiomel wrote:

>You've inspired me to
> try a MiMo converting to Trog (because I want to go spell-less, and Trog
> is an excellent way to enforce that).

Pattern so far: Small D: 1 chunk available with two down staircases. OOD
stuff on D:2 (first was orc pack, second was centaur) kills pretender.

erisdiscordia

unread,

Jul 12, 2006, 5:23:33 AM7/12/06

ste...@gmail.com wrote:
> I finally did it!

Congratulations! This game became a bit "my baby" as well as yours, so
I'm very happy to here it all ended with a YAFVP! Later YAVPs may
contain more difficult exploits, but there's something special about
the very first one.

> Erik's posts also
> help me quite a bit before I even started playing--I decided to
> emphasize Auxiliary Unarmed and Evasion based on posts of his.

I'm a little rabid about Evasion, and Minotaurs have one of the
strongest cases for going heavy-armour. (They can't pick up the
otherwise easily acquired side benefit of good stealth, due to the
double-whammy of a bad stealth aptitude and a bad racial stealth skill
multiplier.) But it is pretty good stuff.

> Also,
> thanks for the great patch Darshan...without it the game would be
> unplayable.

It was played before. I found it very unpleasant to play, but at least
one player is quite vocal about it having being fine to play even then.
So opinions do vary about this.

I also find it's made me a better player "for free" as the features
have increased. E.g. wakefulness-status highlighting of monsters (off
by default) makes me much more likely to avoid dangerous conflicts in
some cases where they're also not (yet) necessary, and that wasn't true
before. Another example: the ability to define no-travel zones has
prevented instadeaths in situations where, having faced an analagous
situation before that feature was added, I simply died.

> I got the monkey off my back

If you really had it off your back, you wouldn't be talking about
trying a new character type later on in your post. :-)

> 3. Targetting and Macros. Learn them and love them. They make the game
> much more enjoyable when you use them effectively and thus you are less
> likely to make a careless mistake. Example: Set a Macro to Ea+ and it
> will automatically target the nearest enemy with the first spell in
> your rod. Another good use of macros is equipment swapping-- macros for
> RgPm and RmPg swapped in my Amulet of Resist Mutation or Gourmand.

That's one case where I still use finger-macros and defining of
inventory letters to support them. (RRPP RPPR for mainline/swap
amulets, and RrPp RpPr for 2nd- and 3rd-best rings). I guess it's
because I consume a lot of prime macro real estate on macros not used
in every game (mainly spellcasting macros), just to keep things
consistent, so I don't have to think about them when switching games,
as I have a deep faith that thought is best saved for the big stuff.

> Bronco the Swordmaster
>
> Race : Minotaur Res.Fire : + + . See Invis. : .
> Class : Monk Res.Cold : x . . Warding : .
>
> 1. Minotaurs are my favorite race for fighter characters.

They really are tough old birds. There are tougher ones, but they
require learning special lessons of their own (e.g. how to feed a
troll). Except for the matter of understanding the importance of their
horns, Minotaurs already work well with a general understanding of a
generic fighter, which is good, because there's already so much to
learn and know in Crawl.

> 2. I chose Monk as my starting class because they start with a solid
> skill set--Fighting, Dodging and Unarmed were all skills I planned to
> use for the entire game. I highly recommend MiMo's for players looking
> for their first ascension.

Another nice thing about Monk (especially Minotaur Monk) is that you
can losslessly let the (combat) equipment that turns up define your
equipment choices, rather having to choose between taking advantage of
found equipment and taking advantage of starting skills.

> Worship : Elyvilon Life Prot.: . . . Conserve : .
>
> 3. Hands down my favorite god. I would have died in Vault: 8 several
> times without greater healing. In particular I remember being
> surrounded by Stone and Frost Giants with no repel missiles and being
> taken down to 27 Health. 2 Greater Healings and a speedy retreat
> allowed me to continue my quest for the orb. Ely is a bit of a pain to
> get going, but no other god grants an ability comparable to Greater
> Healing in sheer ass-saving ability. Again, I highly recommend Ely for
> those looking for their first victory--even spellcasters might want to
> consider him, especially if they start with Sif Muna to obtain some
> critical books first.

Nyra's right in that he's not the *only* good god. But he is very nice.

I moved to Crawl in part to avoid the temptations that often arrive in
roguelikes to do boring routines, with which I have a love/hate
relationship. Ely is kind of counter to that. "Collect and sac weapons"
is nothing compared to the "collect and sell every blasted thing" model
that I am, moth-like, drawn to follow in ADOM, though.

> Inventory:
> Hand weapons
> e - a +8,+7 orcish scimitar of slicing (weapon) (1348 gold)
>
> 4. This weapon was much maligned in the pre-YAFVP thread. Although it
> was suboptimal,

I am a bit skewed by a long string of challenge games, that often
revolved around optimizing what was left to optimize after ignoring
things made impossible by the challenge conditions. A suboptimal weapon
(and a very good one at that) can still win the game, as many YAVPs
including yours have proved. I'm just awfully conservative is all.

BTW there is an important, well-argued weapon-enchantment philosophy
counter to mine that was presented by Rubinstein a while back. I'll try
to summarize it here, and hopefully do it justice.

* If you die today, an optimal weapon won't help you tomorrow.
* A better weapon today will prevent you from dying today.

Thus he doesn't wait for that "weapon of dreams" to show up, but
immediately starts enchanting the first decent one (in terms of what's
realistic early on) to show up, simply accepting the loss as a
necessary and useful one once that weapon of dreams *does* show up.
There's a third point in his favor which might be too munchkiny for his
taste, but occurs quickly to me every time I think about his approach,
so I'll mention it:

* The soft limit on weapon enchantment makes life harder on those
aiming for top enchantments on one weapon than on those aiming for
merely-good enchantments on multiple weapons.

> my auxiliary unarmed attacks and rings of slaying
> overshadowed my weapon's base and ego characteristics.

You were lucky. There's no shame in good luck (though I'm biased here
because, if there were shame in it, I'd have to have left half my YAVPs
unYAVPed), but... you were lucky. When slaying equipment luck fails,
other things need to provide... like the base weapon. But not limited
to it -- see nyra's comments on Might from Okawaru.

> I killed all but
> the toughest monsters in the game in about 1-3 turns at the end. In the
> future, I will be more patient when looking for my endgame weapon
> instead of settling for the first adequate weapon. I found two +0
> katanas in the Lair after the scimitar was already at +7,+7.

Ooh. That's kind of early, even for Rubinstein, I think. :-) Wish he
were here to comment.

> I used
> about 9 more scrolls to get it to +8,+7...if I had known how hard it is
> to get to +9,+9, I would have just enchanted and vorpalized a katana
> from scratch(13/+4/130% is much better than my scimitar's 11/+1/140%).

It's even better than that: you also get minor bonuses for wielding a
hand-and-a-half weapon (that katana) 2-handed. (And yes, getting both
that benefit and punching is cheesy, and yes, the alpha of the new
version has removed that. Sniff.)

> Armour
> o - a +2 pair of gloves (worn) (138 gold)
> V - a +2 cloak (worn) (135 gold)
> W - a +2 dragon armour (worn) (1467 gold)
> Z - a +2 pair of boots of running (worn) (245 gold)
>
> 5. I noticed the Dragon Armour in a shop for 1200 gold early on and
> that motivated my decision to go the light heavy armour
> route--otherwise I would have stuck with a pure dodging route and gone
> with a robe of resistance or(preferably) an elven scale mail of fire
> resistance if I could find one.

Note that Elven metal armours are best considered "heavy light", and
give the best benefits when treated rather similarly to light heavy
armours -- train both skills, ignore stealth. Concretely, elven metal
armours have combat penalties like to their heavy-armour counterparts,
and Armour skill can reduce these -- even in some cases making Armour
effectively a cheaper source of points of EV here than Dodging is!
Furthermore, even light armour gets bonus AC from high Armour skill.
That's irrelevant for ye olde robes of resistance (+1, so +1 more at
level 15), but rather important when Armour skill has 6 points of base
AC to mess around with from Elven Chain. Also interesting is the fact
that the training/not-training of Stealth is based on armour's weight
in AUM, not on its light/heavy classification, so elven metal armours
block training of Stealth -- perfect for a Minotaur.

Hey! You didn't mention you had *that*! :-D

> D - the amulet of Ug Pitihim (567 gold)
> (You found it on level 6 of the Slime Pits)
> This amulet protects the armour and weaponry of its wearer from
> corrosion
> caused by acids, although not infallibly so.
> It affects your dexterity (+2).
> It makes you susceptible to fire.
> It insulates you from electricity.
> It protects you from magic.
>
> 10. This was a very serendipitous discovery. Without it I would have
> had to wear Storm Dragon Armour into Zot, because I had no other source
> of electricity resistance and I can hardly imagine how nasty those
> electric golems are without it. With this equipped, electric golems
> were a piece of cake.

It's possible to take them on without it, but it's also scary and slow.

> Magical staves
> d - a rod of destruction [fire] (250 gold)
> (You acquired it on level 27 of the Dungeon)
>
> 12. I hardly used this... the inaccuracy, magma, cold rod was superior.

Inaccuracy is inaccurate, magma is ineffecient, and cold is widely
resisted, although the combination of three radically different spells
on one rod does make it easy to find at least one decent choice at any
given moment.

[warding]

> 1050 gold. I read the scroll and the rest is history. IMO, this is the
> best rod in the game. Deflect Missiles is incredibly useful and without
> it the Slime Pits(Acid Blobs) and Zot would have been a pain in the
> ass.

Never thought about it that way, but you've got a point -- there's lots
of ways to get more hurtage, but there's only one rod of warding.

In a similar vein, the detection rod is also nice, if you're not able
or willing to pick up some divinations. It won't cast Deflect Missiles
for ya, though. :-)

> Orbs of Power
> S - the Orb of Zot (250000 gold)
>
> 16. Zot was surprisingly easy. I was reduced to 50% hitpoints twice,
> but greater healing fixed me up in a jiffy. I used Detect Monsters and
> Traps liberally along with deflect missiles. It didn't hurt that I was
> playing very carefully for fear of losing my character except one point
> when I slaughtered several dragons and orb guardians using only
> auxiliary unarmed attacks because I forgot to unequip my rod of
> warding. Even then I only fell to 184 HP.

I gave quite conservative advice, so I figured you'd wonder what the
fuss was all about. I also figured you'd appreciate the
conservativeness if things started going to hell in a handbasket, as
they sometimes do down there. :-)

Wielding something silly is a wonderful chance to see just how much aux
unarmed is doing all on its lonesome. It can do quite a lot -- I had a
YAVP at one point where, just to be silly, I wielded the Orb and
clumsily bashed with it, doing most of the damage through aux unarmed.
Killed some pretty nasty stuff that way.

I've got 12 or 13 YAVPs and I'm *still* scared of Vaults:8. Sometimes
it's a cakewalk, but that only makes it easier to die on the many other
times when it isn't. V8 is one of my reasons for loving evasion --
having the Poor Man's Deflect Missiles on your side when things are
flying at you from all sides really eases the pain.

> t - a decaying rune of Zot (10000 gold)
>
> 18. Trivial...I was never in danger here. I used unarmed for the Hydras
> and wore a +2 Leather Armour of Poison Resistance the whole way. Too
> bad I did this after the snake pits or I would have found the katanas
> early enough to make use of them.

Swamp's difficulty varies a lot with character type. Overspecialized
axe maniacs can find it just awful if they don't luck into a flaming
axe.

The patch has changed it a lot, too. Navigating that place pre-patch
was a world of pain.

> N - a slimy rune of Zot (10000 gold)
>
> 19. I played very cautiously and always focused on killing the floating
> eyes here because I lost perhaps my 3rd or 4th best character ever to
> an acid blob ambush.

I tend to poo-pah them, even though I know I shouldn't. I'm gradually
getting better, though.

> Deflect missiles carried the day here and I
> improved my skills quite with all the high XP monsters.

Omitted words -- euphoric late-night YAVP? (No malice intended -- I've
done it many a time myself.)

> T - a serpentine rune of Zot (10000 gold)
>
> 20. I am a bit of an odd duck. I usually do the Snake Pits as my first
> branch. I was already pretty buff at this point with the rings of
> slaying and evasion and I cut through the Nagas in 1-3 turns each. If I
> ever got in trouble, I used medium healing and I was out of it.

Snake is hardly odd at all as a first branch (outside the Lair of
course). It's got a fairly predictable set of dangers, and if you've
got solutions for poison spit and grey snakes -- which is often
achievable early -- they're not very large dangers either.

That said, I often skip Snake until reaching the bottom of the Lair,
simply to avoid thinking about having to return and finish off the Lair
later on. Simplicity again. Death Yaks often trump simplicity, though.

> You have 14662 experience left.
>
> Skills:
> + Level 20 Fighting
> * Level 27 Long Blades
>
> 21. I planned to use Long Blades from the start because they work well
> with auxiliary unarmed. However, if I had found a good 1 or 1.5 handed
> weapon early on I would have gone with it. Do Maces, Polearms or Axes
> have good weapons to go with Unarmed?

Axes have two nice hand-and-a-halfers. Maces have none. Polearms have
plenty (but are much maligned, perhaps unjustly). But you forgot
staves! Staves, from an unarmed standpoint, have *only*
hand-and-a-halfers. They are also much maligned, and again, perhaps
unjustly. Staves are I believe 7/6/120, which really isn't all that
horrid for a hand-and-a-halfer. (Though they don't get the 2-handed
bonus, and they block shields... FWthat'sW.) They have no
"executioner's staff", but there's no "staffalchion" either, which is
important when getting gifts from Okie or Trog. Staves of speed are
surprisingly easy to get yourself gifted, and are... good. But I'm
digressing, sorry.

> - Level 5 Spellcasting
> - Level 7 Enchantments
> - Level 7 Divinations
> - Level 12 Invocations
>
> 25. Just high enough to use Greater Healing at "Very Good".

Very Good is bad enough to have two failures in a row often enough to
be dangerous. You were a little lucky here. Though getting past Very
Good is more important (and more feasible) for relying on
translocations than for relying on Greater Healing.

> Your Spells Type Success
> Level
> a - Detect Creatures Divination Great 2
> b - Detect Traps Divination Great 2
>
> 26. Isn't it odd that the two best spells in the game are simple
> detection spells? I used these extensively in Slime Pits and Zot.

At best they're the second and third best. The very most powerful spell
is Selective Amnesia. :-)

Errrr... "best spells" is a pretty big can of worms. :-D

> Your vision is a little blurry.

YOWZA!

> 28. From an orb of fire because I had the electric resistance amulet
> swapped in.

I can hardly imagine a more graphic example of what I meant when I
called electric golems "strategically dangerous due to pinning" or
somesuch.

> At that point the game was in hand, but I equipped the
> artifact ring of sustain abilities for the trip back--I wasn't about to
> lose a second straight powerhouse character to stupidity.

Normally I'd be worried to wear antiport in your situation, but you
seem to forget little things less than I do -- I'd find myself wasting
turns in a crisis trying to port with it still on.

> Last Messages
>
> Are you sure you want to leave the Dungeon?
> [Y]es or [N]o only, please.
> Are you sure you want to leave the Dungeon?
> You have escaped!

What Elethiomel said. :-)

> Vanquished Creatures
> 2 ancient liches
>
> 29. Those are pretty scary if you don't get to them quickly, but with
> two rings of slaying I dropped them in 2 hits or so.

I think they can go invisible... always scary when no convenient source
has shown up, and you can't use a corridor to pin them to a certain
line of fire (like, indeed, in Zot:5, where they're common!).

> An orb of fire (Zot:5)
>
> 30. Not as scary as advertised.

Wait until you meet them with less slaying on your side and say that
again. :-)

> A royal jelly (Slime:6)
>
> 31. WTF. Why so high in the kill list? It went down in 3 turns without
> even damaging me.

Heh. You'll *love* Geryon (guardian of the gates of Hell), then. Those
two are in permanent showdown for the Most In-Game Overhyped Creature.
AKA the Wimp title.

> 3 curse skulls
>
> 33. Bolt of inaccuracy took care of them... but I have a healthy
> respect for them as they've killed promising characters before.

I think the two facts are connected. Congratulations on that,
specifically.

johan.s...@gmail.com

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Jul 12, 2006, 10:08:14 AM7/12/06

ste...@gmail.com wrote:

> I finally did it! Special thanks to Johan Strand, Elethiomel, Erik
> Piper and nyra for advice in both my recent threads. Erik's posts also
> help me quite a bit before I even started playing--I decided to
> emphasize Auxiliary Unarmed and Evasion based on posts of his. Also,
> thanks for the great patch Darshan...without it the game would be
> unplayable.

Congratulations!
(BTW, my last name is Strandell. Google, if that's what you're using,
cuts off part of the email adress to make it harder for spammers.)

> I got the monkey off my back and ascended with the Orb... I think that
> with my last few characters I mastered some of the strategy and tactics
> of the game(beyond the basics of fighting one monster at a time
> whenever possible, character planning, etc...) that I had been missing
> before:

This is one of the things that appeal to me about Crawl, that it is
learnable and more about tactics than having to remember lots of
obscure tricks.

MiCK:s are pretty good as well, and solves the problem of ranged combat
nicely.

The thing about some of the other gods is that they can prevent the
situations where you need Elyvion's healing. Okawaru usually gives you
good equipment, sometimes excellent, and the Invocations are useful too
- Might and Haste are really useful and can help conserve other
resources. Makhleb is great for pure damage output, and the greater
summonings can really help in places like Vaults:8. Trog is Trog, but
berserking is one of the strongest options in the game if you can get a
handle on it. Vehumet is a must for conjurers and summoners.

> Inventory:
> Hand weapons
> e - a +8,+7 orcish scimitar of slicing (weapon) (1348 gold)
>
> 4. This weapon was much maligned in the pre-YAFVP thread. Although it
> was suboptimal, my auxiliary unarmed attacks and rings of slaying
> overshadowed my weapon's base and ego characteristics. I killed all but
> the toughest monsters in the game in about 1-3 turns at the end. In the
> future, I will be more patient when looking for my endgame weapon
> instead of settling for the first adequate weapon. I found two +0
> katanas in the Lair after the scimitar was already at +7,+7. I used
> about 9 more scrolls to get it to +8,+7...if I had known how hard it is
> to get to +9,+9, I would have just enchanted and vorpalized a katana
> from scratch(13/+4/130% is much better than my scimitar's 11/+1/140%).

With your rings of slaying and unarmed attacks you could probably have
used a knife and still dealt lots of damage. :) It's not that your
weapon was bad, it's that you could have used something better instead.
And some of the weapons with lower damage output really hurt when you
lack slaying bonuses.

> 5. I noticed the Dragon Armour in a shop for 1200 gold early on and
> that motivated my decision to go the light heavy armour
> route--otherwise I would have stuck with a pure dodging route and gone
> with a robe of resistance or(preferably) an elven scale mail of fire
> resistance if I could find one.

Light heavy armour is a pretty good strategy for characters that can
handle it, but it depends on skill aptitudes and whether you can find a
nice light heavy armour early enough to make it useful.

> 10. This was a very serendipitous discovery. Without it I would have
> had to wear Storm Dragon Armour into Zot, because I had no other source
> of electricity resistance and I can hardly imagine how nasty those
> electric golems are without it. With this equipped, electric golems
> were a piece of cake.

The Insulation spell is not to be underestimated. Although I doubt that
your character could have gotten it castable.

> w - a rod of destruction [inacc,magma,cold] (250 gold)
> (You found it on level 16 of the Dungeon)
>
> 15. Very nice...found it at the same time as I found +6,+5 ring of
> slaying. I didn't abuse it like I would if I were playing a character
> with better Evocations aptitude, but it was useful for the entire game
> for killing fleeing monsters and dangerous ranged attackers like
> electric eels, Nagas, centaurs/yaktaurs, giants and especially
> elves(you don't want to give a demonologist time to summon 1's). If I
> hadn't found it, I would have relied on a +2,+2 crossbow(also found on
> D: 16 lol) for those duties.

You asked in the other thread: bolt of inaccuracy is useful against
everything with bad evasion. Great against Hydras, for instance.

> - Level 15 Armour
> - Level 14 Dodging
>
> 23. Originally planned on a pure evasion route, but I switched to the
> light heavy armour route when I found the dragon armour. My Armour
> skill took forever to increase becausse I was investing skill points
> aggressively in spellcasting, invocations, evocations. It was still at
> 14 on Zot 4, so I sat around eating until I got it to 15 before I
> entered Zot 5.

You can let monsters beat on you to train Armour. But they have to do
damage to train, so it usually takes a real long time. Beats just
sitting around though, especially with impatient gods.

> g - Silence Air/Enchantment Fair 3
>
> 27. I never used it, but I could cast it at good before I lost 1 point
> of int.

Great for the Tomb (although a bit cheesy).

--
Johan

nyra

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Jul 12, 2006, 7:32:51 AM7/12/06

ste...@gmail.com schrieb:

Congratulations!

> Also,
> thanks for the great patch Darshan...without it the game would be
> unplayable.

I don't know about that; i have the standard distribution, which _is_
a bit awkward to use, but far from unplayable.

> 4. Learn from your past mistakes. Every Stupid Death is a lesson. After
> awhile, you learn to run from a crowd of orcs with priest support

And then you start to learn how to not run away as a naga ...

> or to
> avoid the tomb with an Int of 5(see my last character HDGl!).

I still vividly remember my first (unspoiled, of course) foray into
the Tomb. Can't remember what sort of character exactly, but i did
manage to get the rune, although seriously roughed up.

> Dungeon Crawl version 4.0.0 beta 26 character file.
>
> Bronco the Swordmaster
>
> Race : Minotaur Res.Fire : + + . See Invis. : .
> Class : Monk Res.Cold : x . . Warding : .
>
> 1. Minotaurs are my favorite race for fighter characters. Their main
> features are skill excellent aptitudes across the board(70 Fighting and
> Weapon Skills, 80 Dodging and Armour, 80 Unarmed Fighting and 90
> Crossbows) and Horns!

I think they ought to make pretty good followers of The Shiny One,
what with being effectively stealth-less; just remember not to use
poisonous weaponry - and try to get hold of a gold dragon armour
(shiny!).

> Horns are one of the best racial abilities and
> you can build a whole character around the extra unarmed attacks.

I am impressed by the utility you got out of auxiliary unarmed. I
think i usually have either a full two-handed weapon or
weapon-and-shield.

I prefer fighters because i find that AC greatly increases survival
chances early in the game, at least in the absence of an overwhelming
offence.

Slicing is all-purpose but relatively weak, as i understand. Scimitars
aren't bad, actually, but i tend to spend more time looking for
something better, either a better base weapon to vorpalise or a better
brand - burning and freezing are widely useful, draining is a mixed
blessing (extra damage, less dangerous opponents, less experience).
For all of these, the bigger your weapon, the higher the extra damage.
Electrocution is an interesting brand because its extra damage doesn't
depend on your weapon damage, making it most interesting on fast
weapons.

> h - a rod of summoning (250 gold)
> (You acquired it on level 5 of the Vaults)
>
> 13. Never once used. Ely isn't kind to summoners.

Isn't there abjuration on it? I think this should help reducing the
time hostile summons hang around.

> Miscellaneous
> j - a silver rune of Zot (10000 gold)
>
> 17. By far the toughest rune to get.

Pull out the vault gards in batches, stand around on the stairs until
things stop coming at you, might/haste for everything dangerous, then
run for the rune and get out as fast as possible. A fair bit of work
requiring some care for an Okawarrior, but nowhere near as bad as the
Pan or Tomb runes.

> T - a serpentine rune of Zot (10000 gold)
>
> 20. I am a bit of an odd duck. I usually do the Snake Pits as my first
> branch.

I don't think that's odd. Snake is the first rune branch i usually do,
and it's been so since the times when one rune was enough to allow you
into Zot proper. It's an easy rune to get, arguably the easiest one of
them all; and while grey snakes and greater nagas are bad, they don't
come near a bunch of hydras.

> 21. I planned to use Long Blades from the start because they work well
> with auxiliary unarmed. However, if I had found a good 1 or 1.5 handed
> weapon early on I would have gone with it. Do Maces, Polearms or Axes
> have good weapons to go with Unarmed?

Maces - eveningstar is roughly equivalent to katana, but absurdly
rare. I _think_ that spiked flails aren't half bad; that's to say,
they do similar damage to a scimitar and are a fair bit slower - other
mace-types are significantly worse.
Axes - war axe and broad axe are both hand-and-a-half; broad axes do
pretty good damage.

Other choices are demon whip and demon trident, but you're extremely
unlikely to get them early on.

> 3 titans (Vault:8)
> 37 stone giants
> 2 stone giants (shapeshifter)
> 3 frost giants
> 3 frost giants
>
> 34. Scariest monsters in the game... they were nearly the death of me.

I had similar experiences with my fighting characters. These brutes
hit _hard_.

Good luck with your ghul. I mean to get one going some time, i just
keep giving up in frustration everytime i've had a dozen or so
slaughtered mercilessly without even getting to D:3.

--
Se on Jumalan sana, sanoi mies,
kun akkansa raamatulla löi.

ste...@gmail.com

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Jul 12, 2006, 6:48:53 PM7/12/06

Elethiomel wrote:
> Congratulations on your win!

Thanks!

> This is a lesson worth learning for every roguelike.

There are other roguelikes? Haha.

Actually I've played a fair amount of Nethack, Slash'Em and ADOM. I've
had four ascendable characters in Nethack/Slash'Em who were nigh
invincible, but I stopped playing them once I cleared the castle
because the end game is so boring.

ADOM is too tedious/frustrating for me... I got sick of having to redo
the same early game quests over and over again. The scumming aspects
drove me crazy as well(same for Nethack really).

The fundamental thing I like about Crawl is that every game is wildly
different. In Nethack you acquire every single resistance and roughly
the same ascension kit every time for every character. In Crawl, good
equipment is rare and exciting and the resistance system is deeper and
few resistances are gauranteed. There is a lot of differentiation
between the races which adds to replayability--the difference between a
Spriggan and a Troll is a lot bigger than the difference between a
Halfling and a Drakeling in ADOM.

> A very nice combination [rod of inaccuracy, magma, cold and ring of slaying +6,+5] stuff to find for a fighter/evoker!

Yep, I remember thinking to myself "Boy, I am really going to hate life
when this guy bites it."

> Yes. Vaults: 8 is a nasty, nasty place, especially considering the time
> a character usually finds it. An unspoiled descent to V: 8 is scarier by
> an order of magnitude.

Luckily this was my second time in Vault: 8(the first was the HDGl who
died of stupidity-he cleared it), so I had a better idea of what to
expect--namely trouble and lots of it.

> Again, congratulations! Good luck with your GhFi. You've inspired me to
> try a MiMo converting to Trog (because I want to go spell-less, and Trog
> is an excellent way to enforce that).

Good luck. I've played some Troglodyte MiMo's in the past. My idea was
to stick with unarmed all the way up until Trog started gifting
weapons--at which point I'd switch to the first excellent 1 or 1.5
handed weapon he granted(Demon Trident, Broad Axe, Katana, Quick Blade
with Flaming, Holy Wrath, Slicing or Speed or Quarterstaff of Speed). I
never had quite the success with Trog as I did with Elyvilon, but he is
definitely a great choice as well especially if you have some amulet
luck and find resist slowing and/or gourmand. Berserk, Might and Haste
are exception abilities.

BumbleBee the GhFi is coming a lot pretty nicely, he is up to level 8
and just arrived at the temple. I am debating between Makhleb and
Okawaru. He had some early equipment luck(Morningstar and Chain Mail
and later a Wand of Draining, Great Mace, Ring of Strength +6 and Ring
of Evasion +3!) and while it's still early, I'm hoping I can eventually
build him up enough to tackle the Hells and the Tomb.

ste...@gmail.com

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Jul 12, 2006, 7:39:00 PM7/12/06

erisdiscordia wrote:
> Congratulations! This game became a bit "my baby" as well as yours, so
> I'm very happy to here it all ended with a YAFVP! Later YAVPs may
> contain more difficult exploits, but there's something special about
> the very first one.

Thanks. I greatly appreciate your help. For my second YAVP I'd like to
at least tackle the Hells and the Tomb if not Pandemonium and the
Abyss(the latter two are a bit tedious for my taste).

> I'm a little rabid about Evasion, and Minotaurs have one of the
> strongest cases for going heavy-armour. (They can't pick up the
> otherwise easily acquired side benefit of good stealth, due to the
> double-whammy of a bad stealth aptitude and a bad racial stealth skill
> multiplier.) But it is pretty good stuff.

How good is stealth? My most successful characters have been Dwarven
and Minotaur fighter types, so I have always turned it off from the
beginning and haven't developed an appreciation for it.

> > I got the monkey off my back
>
> If you really had it off your back, you wouldn't be talking about
> trying a new character type later on in your post. :-)

Haha, true.

> Another nice thing about Monk (especially Minotaur Monk) is that you
> can losslessly let the (combat) equipment that turns up define your
> equipment choices, rather having to choose between taking advantage of
> found equipment and taking advantage of starting skills.

That is true. I actually didn't take advantage of that in this game--I
went straight for long blades as I knew they are plentiful and I could
easily find one that let me keep my extra unarmed attacks. It was a
mistake(I found a Broad Axe not too long after I committed to Long
Blades), but luckily it didn't cost me.

> I moved to Crawl in part to avoid the temptations that often arrive in
> roguelikes to do boring routines, with which I have a love/hate
> relationship. Ely is kind of counter to that. "Collect and sac weapons"
> is nothing compared to the "collect and sell every blasted thing" model
> that I am, moth-like, drawn to follow in ADOM, though.

Yep...It's really not that bad unless you really abuse his invocations.
On the whole, I think Ely takes less work than the live sacrifice
deities--with them you have to continue praying and sacrificing corpses
for the entire game instead of just making a few sac runs to the
temple.

> * If you die today, an optimal weapon won't help you tomorrow.
> * A better weapon today will prevent you from dying today.

This was my approach exactly. I also looked through some Long Blades
YAVPs and saw that a lot of winners had a simple +7-9,+7-9 Long Sword
of Slicing. IScimitars are probably slightly worse than long
swords(essentially a scimitar is a -2,+1 base long sword), but I felt
that base weapon type probably wouldn't kill me in the long
run(although as you said I got lucky to find that +6,+5 slaying ring),
but an extra +3,+3 or so could easily save me in the short run.

> > I used
> > about 9 more scrolls to get it to +8,+7...if I had known how hard it is
> > to get to +9,+9, I would have just enchanted and vorpalized a katana
> > from scratch(13/+4/130% is much better than my scimitar's 11/+1/140%).
>
> It's even better than that: you also get minor bonuses for wielding a
> hand-and-a-half weapon (that katana) 2-handed. (And yes, getting both
> that benefit and punching is cheesy, and yes, the alpha of the new
> version has removed that. Sniff.)

Wow, I only vaguely realized that hand and a half weapons were that
broken with unarmed... If I had understood that I would have definitely
waited for a 1.5 hander.

> Note that Elven metal armours are best considered "heavy light", and
> give the best benefits when treated rather similarly to light heavy
> armours -- train both skills, ignore stealth. Concretely, elven metal
> armours have combat penalties like to their heavy-armour counterparts,
> and Armour skill can reduce these -- even in some cases making Armour
> effectively a cheaper source of points of EV here than Dodging is!
> Furthermore, even light armour gets bonus AC from high Armour skill.
> That's irrelevant for ye olde robes of resistance (+1, so +1 more at
> level 15), but rather important when Armour skill has 6 points of base
> AC to mess around with from Elven Chain.

That's pretty interesting stuff...the light vs heavy vs. light heavy
and heavy light stuff has always confused me. Usually I like to stick
to either heavy or light armour because it's kind of a hassle to train
both Dodging and Armour. Now that I think about it, though, it wasn't
too bad the Bronco game though I didn't attain Armour 15/Dodging
14(Seems to be the sweet spot) until right before Zot: 5.

> > A - a +6,+5 ring of slaying (right hand) (1050 gold)
> >
> > 9. I found this on D: 16 along with my first attack rod! I wore it for
> > the entire game except for the slime pits when I swapped it out for the
> > =of Robustness.
>
> Hey! You didn't mention you had *that*! :-D

Ah...I figured that the +5 Evasion was better than +8 AC for a high AC
character, so I left it in my cache except for the Slime Pits where I
equipped both(and a +2 Ring Mail with Great Cold Protection) to get to
17 AC, 20 EV.

> > Magical staves
> > d - a rod of destruction [fire] (250 gold)
> > (You acquired it on level 27 of the Dungeon)
> >
> > 12. I hardly used this... the inaccuracy, magma, cold rod was superior.
>
> Inaccuracy is inaccurate, magma is ineffecient, and cold is widely
> resisted, although the combination of three radically different spells
> on one rod does make it easy to find at least one decent choice at any
> given moment.

Yeah, you're right actually. I should have used bolt of fire more often
instead of bolt of magma. Bolt of cold saw a great deal of use against
non-resistant monsters, but for the most part I stuck with melee.

> [warding]
> > 1050 gold. I read the scroll and the rest is history. IMO, this is the
> > best rod in the game. Deflect Missiles is incredibly useful and without
> > it the Slime Pits(Acid Blobs) and Zot would have been a pain in the
> > ass.
>
> Never thought about it that way, but you've got a point -- there's lots
> of ways to get more hurtage, but there's only one rod of warding.
>
> In a similar vein, the detection rod is also nice, if you're not able
> or willing to pick up some divinations. It won't cast Deflect Missiles
> for ya, though. :-)

Definitely. Whenever I acquire a rod, I root for Warding or Discovery
because usually there are enough scrolls of acquirement to get a rod of
destruction later...maybe I've been lucky with those in recent games
though.

> I gave quite conservative advice, so I figured you'd wonder what the
> fuss was all about. I also figured you'd appreciate the
> conservativeness if things started going to hell in a handbasket, as
> they sometimes do down there. :-)

Caution and prudence are never superfluous... there was one point when
I worried a lot in Zot: A Deep Elf Demonologist surrounded me with 1's
when I decended into Zot: 5 and I got hellfired down to <50% HP, but I
had plenty of piety so greater healing rectified matters.

> Wielding something silly is a wonderful chance to see just how much aux
> unarmed is doing all on its lonesome. It can do quite a lot -- I had a
> YAVP at one point where, just to be silly, I wielded the Orb and
> clumsily bashed with it, doing most of the damage through aux unarmed.
> Killed some pretty nasty stuff that way.

Nethack veterans around the globe are now salivating at the prospect of
MiMo's wielding nothing but their opening bread ration for the entire
game.

> > Deflect missiles carried the day here and I
> > improved my skills quite with all the high XP monsters.
>
> Omitted words -- euphoric late-night YAVP? (No malice intended -- I've
> done it many a time myself.)

Haha, well I think I finished it in the morning after a pot of coffee
so no excuses...the sentence is missing "a bit" after "quite".

> Snake is hardly odd at all as a first branch (outside the Lair of
> course). It's got a fairly predictable set of dangers, and if you've
> got solutions for poison spit and grey snakes -- which is often
> achievable early -- they're not very large dangers either.

Ah, I figured most players did the Swamp first from what I've read. I
feel more comfortable with corridor fighting against slow Nagas than
brawling with speedy Hydras in the open areas of the swamp. I have lost
a lot of promising characters while trying to lure single Hydras and
Swamp Dragons up the stairs from the last level, but in hindsight my
main problem was singlemindedness--at the first sign of trouble I
should have just abandoned the swamp until I was strong enough to kill
Hydras and Dragons with ease.

> Axes have two nice hand-and-a-halfers. Maces have none. Polearms have
> plenty (but are much maligned, perhaps unjustly). But you forgot
> staves! Staves, from an unarmed standpoint, have *only*
> hand-and-a-halfers. They are also much maligned, and again, perhaps
> unjustly. Staves are I believe 7/6/120, which really isn't all that
> horrid for a hand-and-a-halfer.

Ah, very interesting. In the future I'll try a Polearms or Staves
specialist. Although, it is a bit repetitive to build all my characters
around auxiliary unarmed.. Maybe one of these days I'll try
spellcasters again...

> > - Level 12 Invocations
> >
> > 25. Just high enough to use Greater Healing at "Very Good".
>
> Very Good is bad enough to have two failures in a row often enough to
> be dangerous. You were a little lucky here. Though getting past Very
> Good is more important (and more feasible) for relying on
> translocations than for relying on Greater Healing.

Hmmm, what level should I have raised it too? I never did have two
failures in a row, but I used Greater Healing only around 10 times or
so and only once or twice did I use it twice in a row.

> > a - Detect Creatures Divination Great 2
> > b - Detect Traps Divination Great 2
> >
> > 26. Isn't it odd that the two best spells in the game are simple
> > detection spells? I used these extensively in Slime Pits and Zot.
>
> At best they're the second and third best. The very most powerful spell
> is Selective Amnesia. :-)
>
> Errrr... "best spells" is a pretty big can of worms. :-D

Haha, well I usually play fighter types, so I am biased towards spells
that complement them. Deflect Missiles is another spell I love, but I
can rarely find it *and* learn to cast it with a reasonable failure
rate.

> > Vanquished Creatures
> > 2 ancient liches
> >
> > 29. Those are pretty scary if you don't get to them quickly, but with
> > two rings of slaying I dropped them in 2 hits or so.
>
> I think they can go invisible... always scary when no convenient source
> has shown up, and you can't use a corridor to pin them to a certain
> line of fire (like, indeed, in Zot:5, where they're common!).

Ancient Liches are one of those monsters that instantly set off klaxons
in my head when I see them(others are curse skulls, orc sorcerors and
deep elf demonologists, as well as other summoners to a lesser extent).
>From painful experience I have learned to either A. Go all out to
destroy summoners using ranged wands or rods. or B. Run(using potion of
speed, scroll of teleport or blinking if necessary).

Thanks for the advice and comments.

ste...@gmail.com

unread,

Jul 12, 2006, 8:11:25 PM7/12/06

nyra wrote:
> Congratulations!

Thanks.

> > Horns are one of the best racial abilities and
> > you can build a whole character around the extra unarmed attacks.
>
> I am impressed by the utility you got out of auxiliary unarmed. I
> think i usually have either a full two-handed weapon or
> weapon-and-shield.

I can't stress enough how great the auxiliary unarmed is...the extra
attacks are murderous.

> > 2. I chose Monk as my starting class because they start with a solid
> > skill set--Fighting, Dodging and Unarmed were all skills I planned to
> > use for the entire game. I highly recommend MiMo's for players looking
> > for their first ascension.
>
> I prefer fighters because i find that AC greatly increases survival
> chances early in the game, at least in the absence of an overwhelming
> offence.

Ah, that's true... MiMo's seem to have few problems in the early-mid
game though(at least problems that could be solved by higher AC) and
I'd much rather die early than lose a promising character later.

> > h - a rod of summoning (250 gold)
> > (You acquired it on level 5 of the Vaults)
> >
> > 13. Never once used. Ely isn't kind to summoners.
>
> Isn't there abjuration on it? I think this should help reducing the
> time hostile summons hang around.

Yep...I just never used it as I managed to take out all the summoners
before I was in danger. I didn't use abjuration from the warding rod
either though there was one instance where I probably should have in
Zot: 5(I was worried that it might fail to abjure some 1s, so I just
healed up and meleed them).

> Pull out the vault gards in batches, stand around on the stairs until
> things stop coming at you, might/haste for everything dangerous, then
> run for the rune and get out as fast as possible. A fair bit of work
> requiring some care for an Okawarrior, but nowhere near as bad as the
> Pan or Tomb runes.

That's essentially what I did. One problem was that there were no
downstairs in a single file corridor, so when I lured vault guards up,
there were as many as 5 of them surrounding me at once.
Haste+Might+Healing(and of course the slaying rings) carried the day.
The main problem for me in the Vaults were the Giants...they absolutely
murdered me even though I was quite buff and had decent EV. I exhausted
a ton of piety on Greater Healing.

> > 21. I planned to use Long Blades from the start because they work well
> > with auxiliary unarmed. However, if I had found a good 1 or 1.5 handed
> > weapon early on I would have gone with it. Do Maces, Polearms or Axes
> > have good weapons to go with Unarmed?
>
> Maces - eveningstar is roughly equivalent to katana, but absurdly
> rare.

Funny you mention that...there was a +5,+6 Artifact Eveningstar in a
shop for 4600 gold, but since I also had to buy the dragon armour for
1200 gold, I figured that it wasn't worth it to gather that much gold.

>
> > Summary: I'm glad to have a win under my belt, although I think I was
> > lucky to find several key pieces of equipment and I definitely
> > powergamed Bronco with utmost efficiency to utilize all the best items
> > and skills. I think for my next character, I'll attempt a GhFi with a
> > different god and weapon. Thanks for reading!
>
> Good luck with your ghul. I mean to get one going some time, i just
> keep giving up in frustration everytime i've had a dozen or so
> slaughtered mercilessly without even getting to D:3.

I managed to get three to the temple(one died at the hands of Blorc the
Orc's paralysis wand and the other was killed by a manticore). The
third ghoul is in the temple right now and I'm debating which deity to
choose. Here is the strategy I use--it is quite crafty for a ghoul, but
ghouls are so ridiculously weak on D: 1 that extreme measures must be
taken.

1. On turn one, turn off all skills except dodging(including fighting).
When dodging hits 2(9), switch it off. Do not turn any skills back on
until your weapon skill(either maces or unarmed unless you find an
early axe or long sword) is up to level 4. If you leave your skills on,
it takes so long to level up your weapon skill that you usually die
because your attack power can't keep pace with your dungeon level.

2. Also on turn one, unequip short sword. Only use it to kill monsters
with higher EV(especially Snakes and Jackals which otherwise are a big
killer of early game ghouls).

3. Pick up the first piece of heavy armour you find and wear it... even
though I like Dodging better in general it's just too frustrating to
use light armour early on with Ghouls because their weapon skills are
nonexistent.

4. If you spot a humanoid monster, use this technique to kill them with
as little HP loss as possible(warning: extremely cheap):

A. Turn off autopickup.
B. Measure how many steps they are away from you, drop gold pieces and
lure them onto the spots--this essentially buys you extra attacks. Here
is an example:

g . . @ . . #

The hobgoblin is 3 steps away from your current location.
Drop 1 gold piece, move one square to the right, drop 1 gold piece.
The hobgoblin is now on your original location. Hit hit twice(he won't
be able to hit you back during either of these).
Move 1 space to the right, hit him again(third free attack), then fight
him as usual.

That tactic might leave a sour taste in your mouth, but IMO it's better
than losing 20 ghouls on D: 1-3 for every one that makes it to the
temple. I hate the fighter template for ghouls, but I want to tackle
the tomb and hells and ghouls seem to be the best non-spellcaster for
the task.

Gerry Quinn

unread,

Jul 13, 2006, 6:02:11 AM7/13/06

In article <1152744533.7...@35g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
ste...@gmail.com says...

> The fundamental thing I like about Crawl is that every game is wildly
> different. In Nethack you acquire every single resistance and roughly
> the same ascension kit every time for every character. In Crawl, good
> equipment is rare and exciting and the resistance system is deeper and
> few resistances are gauranteed. There is a lot of differentiation
> between the races which adds to replayability--the difference between a
> Spriggan and a Troll is a lot bigger than the difference between a
> Halfling and a Drakeling in ADOM.

I agree - the unpredictability is great, plus the fact that there isn't
so much wacky nonsense about dipping potions. The game has the variety
of NetHack, the logic of Angband, and an unpredictability that seems to
be all its own.

- Gerry Quinn

erisdiscordia

unread,

Jul 13, 2006, 6:11:46 AM7/13/06

ste...@gmail.com wrote:
> erisdiscordia wrote:

> > I'm a little rabid about Evasion, and Minotaurs have one of the
> > strongest cases for going heavy-armour. (They can't pick up the
> > otherwise easily acquired side benefit of good stealth, due to the
> > double-whammy of a bad stealth aptitude and a bad racial stealth skill
> > multiplier.) But it is pretty good stuff.
>
> How good is stealth? My most successful characters have been Dwarven
> and Minotaur fighter types, so I have always turned it off from the
> beginning and haven't developed an appreciation for it.

It's very good, especially if you turn on stealth highlighting so that
you don't have to x-and-cursor to see whom you haven't woken up yet.
Seeing a terrifying enemy and, one gasp later, realizing that they're
still sleeping is really great. Backstabbing is powerful too, but
Backstabbing is no more necessary to give importance to Stealth than
Stealth is to give importance to Dodging.

> > Another nice thing about Monk (especially Minotaur Monk) is that you
> > can losslessly let the (combat) equipment that turns up define your
> > equipment choices, rather having to choose between taking advantage of
> > found equipment and taking advantage of starting skills.
>
> That is true. I actually didn't take advantage of that in this game--I
> went straight for long blades as I knew they are plentiful and I could
> easily find one that let me keep my extra unarmed attacks. It was a
> mistake(I found a Broad Axe not too long after I committed to Long
> Blades), but luckily it didn't cost me.

Long blades are so good that it's tempting for me to choose them in
every game, and likewise, I find myself regretting my ethic of "don't
use the same weapon for too many games" when I'm doing a hard challenge
game. They're easy to cast over, kind to a Dex-oriented character (and
I love Dex), plentiful, edged, easy to get a flame brand for... the
only major downside is the rather late arrival of the first one in an
average game, causing some wastage of XP. (There are a few minor ones
as well.)

> > I moved to Crawl in part to avoid the temptations that often arrive in
> > roguelikes to do boring routines, with which I have a love/hate
> > relationship. Ely is kind of counter to that. "Collect and sac weapons"
> > is nothing compared to the "collect and sell every blasted thing" model
> > that I am, moth-like, drawn to follow in ADOM, though.
>
> Yep...It's really not that bad unless you really abuse his invocations.
> On the whole, I think Ely takes less work than the live sacrifice
> deities--with them you have to continue praying and sacrificing corpses
> for the entire game instead of just making a few sac runs to the
> temple.

The in-game loss of time is probably the same or smaller, but because
it's lumped up into several-minute or even several-dozen-minute
periods, I find collect-and-sac more boring than a short "hit F1"
before each killm etc. (Prayer is one of the first things I macroed,
historically -- 'p' is a really inconveniently placed key.)

> > Note that Elven metal armours are best considered "heavy light", and
> > give the best benefits when treated rather similarly to light heavy
> > armours -- train both skills, ignore stealth. Concretely, elven metal
> > armours have combat penalties like to their heavy-armour counterparts,
> > and Armour skill can reduce these -- even in some cases making Armour
> > effectively a cheaper source of points of EV here than Dodging is!
> > Furthermore, even light armour gets bonus AC from high Armour skill.
> > That's irrelevant for ye olde robes of resistance (+1, so +1 more at
> > level 15), but rather important when Armour skill has 6 points of base
> > AC to mess around with from Elven Chain.
>
> That's pretty interesting stuff...the light vs heavy vs. light heavy
> and heavy light stuff has always confused me. Usually I like to stick
> to either heavy or light armour because it's kind of a hassle to train
> both Dodging and Armour. Now that I think about it, though, it wasn't
> too bad the Bronco game though I didn't attain Armour 15/Dodging
> 14(Seems to be the sweet spot) until right before Zot: 5.

I wouldn't worry so much about *deliberate* training. Even in the game
where I endured the most skill micromanagement I've ever done in one
game -- a challenge where I ascended without ever exceeding a 10-point
gap between lowest and highest skill -- I never had to sit around
getting whomped upon. I just let the Dodging and Armour rise from the
natural flow of events. So the natural flow is enough, if you're
patient in the "I'd really like to start to train Dodging now, but
Armour isn't up yet" sense.

> > In a similar vein, the detection rod is also nice, if you're not able
> > or willing to pick up some divinations. It won't cast Deflect Missiles
> > for ya, though. :-)
>
> Definitely. Whenever I acquire a rod, I root for Warding or Discovery
> because usually there are enough scrolls of acquirement to get a rod of
> destruction later...maybe I've been lucky with those in recent games
> though.

A rodslinging strategy really can fail to dumb luck, leaving you
wishing you'd developed a different ranged approach instead. I used to
count on it, Johan warned me I was being foolish, I closely watched
acquirement luck, let alone acquirement luck for a while, and I must
agree with his old assertion that (my words below, not his) success
with getting enough acquirements and getting enough non-staff,
non-striking, non-smiting results from acquirements in decent time is
entirely a crapshoot.

> > Wielding something silly is a wonderful chance to see just how much aux
> > unarmed is doing all on its lonesome. It can do quite a lot -- I had a
> > YAVP at one point where, just to be silly, I wielded the Orb and
> > clumsily bashed with it, doing most of the damage through aux unarmed.
> > Killed some pretty nasty stuff that way.
>
> Nethack veterans around the globe are now salivating at the prospect of
> MiMo's wielding nothing but their opening bread ration for the entire
> game.

Sounds like the Cute Dog challenge someone once mentioned for ADoM. (My
roguelike of choice until Crawl was actually ADoM. I've dipped my toes
in Nethack many times, and I *want* to like it, but I just don't know
how. Mainly Nethack's ID minigame turns me off; I find it the least
enjoyable ID minigame out of all the big four's. (Maybe I take too
seriously the need to game that minigame.) I somehow got entranced by
ToME for several months at one point -- I think it's because it's a
sort of SLASH'EM of the Angband world. Angband itself is too
transparently awful to like, although for educational purposes I fire
it up every now and then to try to understand the psychology of
Angbanders (although ToME has helped a lot there) and the "spirit" of
Angband (ditto).

Because the only untackled Crawl challenge that occurs to me at the
moment that's also attractive to me is also scary as hell (Heretic Man
-- piss off all the gods, then win), I'm actually in an ADoM phase,
playing-wise, right now -- I'd like to earn some challenge-game
accolades there, too, so I'm doing the no-inventory challenge that
Malte Helmert once mentioned in an aside while discussing a failed
attempt at Carbon Fibre Man (win without ever exceeding 100s of
weight). It's a very refreshing way to play ADoM, because it makes many
scumming methods impossible -- though it does OTOH make some remaining
ones almost a necessity. The "One" challenge, where you say to yourself
"I will win this challenge by winning exactly the next game I start,"
then do so, is even better in that respect, but I've already lost it.
(No fair playing it twice.)

But I digress. :-)

Nethack challenge games as something for Crawl have gotten mentioned
around here a lot lately. In a nutshell: atheist (non-Demigod, that is
:-)) has been done a few times, foodless is impossible, polyless and
genoless are automatic, wishless (acquirementless) has been done at
least once, vegetarian has been done once, pacifist has been done once,
naked hasn't been done, illiterate hasn't been done, anything else?

> > > - Level 12 Invocations
> > >
> > > 25. Just high enough to use Greater Healing at "Very Good".
> >
> > Very Good is bad enough to have two failures in a row often enough to
> > be dangerous. You were a little lucky here. Though getting past Very
> > Good is more important (and more feasible) for relying on
> > translocations than for relying on Greater Healing.
>
> Hmmm, what level should I have raised it too?

Until you reach Perfect, it's a matter of taste. And I'm a lousy
statistician, so I can't help with the numbers, although if invocations
use the same fail-rates system as spells (which I can't recall
offhand), you can check [loonie crawl spoilers] or [erwan crawl
spoilers].

> > > Vanquished Creatures
> > > 2 ancient liches
> > >
> > > 29. Those are pretty scary if you don't get to them quickly, but with
> > > two rings of slaying I dropped them in 2 hits or so.
> >
> > I think they can go invisible... always scary when no convenient source
> > has shown up, and you can't use a corridor to pin them to a certain
> > line of fire (like, indeed, in Zot:5, where they're common!).
>
> Ancient Liches are one of those monsters that instantly set off klaxons
> in my head when I see them(others are curse skulls, orc sorcerors and
> deep elf demonologists, as well as other summoners to a lesser extent).
> >From painful experience I have learned to either A. Go all out to
> destroy summoners using ranged wands or rods. or B. Run(using potion of
> speed, scroll of teleport or blinking if necessary).

There's also c) milk dat summoner, although Crawl's summoners seem to
be deliberately designed to be hideously dangerous to milk. (It would
fit the overall pattern set by e.g. the double-edged nature of Pan and
the Abyss.) One exception to that overall pattern is Blue Deaths, who
are a Pan-diving Troglodyte's best friend. ;-)

pl...@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de

unread,

Jul 13, 2006, 7:49:17 AM7/13/06

Hi all!

I've snipped tons of stuff, so individual surviving quotes are
attributed to sterjs (original poster) or erik.

[avoidance of treadmilling, here with gods, today: is saccing weapons
for Ely better or worse than praying continuously to a corpse-adoring
god?]

sterjs:

> > Yep...It's really not that bad unless you really abuse his invocations.
> > On the whole, I think Ely takes less work than the live sacrifice
> > deities--with them you have to continue praying and sacrificing corpses
> > for the entire game instead of just making a few sac runs to the
> > temple.

erik:

> The in-game loss of time is probably the same or smaller, but because
> it's lumped up into several-minute or even several-dozen-minute
> periods, I find collect-and-sac more boring than a short "hit F1"
> before each killm etc. (Prayer is one of the first things I macroed,
> historically -- 'p' is a really inconveniently placed key.)

By the way, I have backspace for 'p' - easy to hit even in
absent-mind-mode. I think both methods play well. Constantly praying
and butchering is easy (with macroing) and running to the temple,
dropping all (), excluding a,b, and praying should often be a matter of
seconds (with the travel patch, of course). I reckon it's a bit more
stressing to clean the dungeon for Nemelex.

Can you gan piety with Ely by healing your pets? (This should work
IMHO, but only for damaged pets in order to avoid scumming.)

sterjs:

> > Nethack veterans around the globe are now salivating at the prospect of
> > MiMo's wielding nothing but their opening bread ration for the entire
> > game.

Or the banana - from start to finish! Actually it's time to export
silly ideas from Crawl to Nethack. Just I cannot do it: no Nethack for
me anymore, please.

erik:

> Nethack challenge games as something for Crawl have gotten mentioned
> around here a lot lately. In a nutshell: atheist (non-Demigod, that is
> :-)) has been done a few times, foodless is impossible, polyless and
> genoless are automatic, wishless (acquirementless) has been done at
> least once, vegetarian has been done once, pacifist has been done once,
> naked hasn't been done, illiterate hasn't been done, anything else?

This one is not from Nethack, but one might image a Descartes
challenge: a radical rationalist who refuses to accept the existence of
magic. In game terms: never use Power, all other things being equal.
Need not be combined with atheist, so one might go with Xom or Nemelex
or Makhleb (for the healing).

Many congratulations to the OP for carrying the Orb to the surface!
David

Martin Read

unread,

Jul 13, 2006, 2:10:47 PM7/13/06

pl...@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de wrote:
>This one is not from Nethack, but one might image a Descartes
>challenge: a radical rationalist who refuses to accept the existence of
>magic.

In a universe where one can speak certain words and thereby cause a
metre-long spine of gleaming armour-piercing crystal to come into
existence and hurtle through the air with sufficient force to punch
through a dragon's armoured hide and deep into its heart, denying the
existence of what is called magic by its practitioners is irrational and
unscientific.
--
Martin Read - my opinions are my own. share them if you wish.
\_\/_/ http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~mpread/dungeonbash/
\ / "tempted white eyes blinded by the night hollow like the towers from the
\/ inside laura's a machine she's burning insane" fields of the nephilim

pl...@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de

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Jul 14, 2006, 10:35:00 AM7/14/06

Martin Read schrieb:

> pl...@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de wrote:
> >This one is not from Nethack, but one might image a Descartes
> >challenge: a radical rationalist who refuses to accept the existence of
> >magic.

> In a universe where one can speak certain words and thereby cause a
> metre-long spine of gleaming armour-piercing crystal to come into
> existence and hurtle through the air with sufficient force to punch
> through a dragon's armoured hide and deep into its heart, denying the
> existence of what is called magic by its practitioners is irrational and
> unscientific.

Fair enough. But is this so far from the proof of God's existence seen
by some persons, compared to the extent by which others are sure there
is no-one? Both parties might claim they're behaving rationally.

You could also say that this would be a character who wouldn't make
himself common with magics, no matter how common it is :)

Still another comparison: while money is undoubtely everywhere in our
world and life completely neglecting it seems improbable, there are
definitely human beings choosing that path.

Just my 2$
David

David Damerell

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Jul 14, 2006, 11:35:13 AM7/14/06

Quoting <pl...@zio.mathematik.hu-berlin.de>:
>Martin Read schrieb:

>>In a universe where one can speak certain words and thereby cause a
>>metre-long spine of gleaming armour-piercing crystal to come into
>>existence and hurtle through the air with sufficient force to punch
>>through a dragon's armoured hide and deep into its heart, denying the
>>existence of what is called magic by its practitioners is irrational and
>>unscientific.
>Fair enough. But is this so far from the proof of God's existence seen
>by some persons, compared to the extent by which others are sure there
>is no-one?

If God will punch a metre-long spine of armour-piercing crystal through
Dick Cheney's black heart, I'll admit his existence. Richard Dawkins would
admit God's existence after that one.
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