[Crawl] ["a"] "a," a Human Fighter - Blow by Blow
Erik Piper
The following is meant as inspiration for beginning players, since we
have an inquisitive one in our midst. If anyone finds it useless and
spammy, just let me know and I'll quit.
--------
The human fighter named "a" began his life very simply - a <return> a a
a. :-) He then prayed that D:1 would be a rooms-and-corridors level. It was.
The first step in his illustrious career was turning off Short Blades.
He had higher goals in mind. (Normally I'd turn off Shields too -- don't
like 'em very much. All the more reason to keep 'em on -- a closed mind
can be deadly.)
The second step in his illustrious career was a quick tap of Ctrl-o --
one he would repeat many times after that. Twice immediately with no
thought in fact, because he just was stopping due to staircase
sightings. Due to all the stops to write this log, he actually thought
to peek down the staircase so he would know it was safe to run there in
an emergency. He saw a midsized room with a sling and no monsters, then
went back up on his way.
<will be fast forwarding past the truly boring parts - "boring" being a
moving target>
#.####### #
#...@.....#
#######..%.K.
...
"A kobold. It is wielding an elven dagger."
OK... 555555, *6*... Dead in one blow, lucky me.
#....@........
#.............
#.............
#......[l....
#............
#....a......
Oops, didn't pay attention. But it's only a green l. Back up... easy
victory, great.
A wee bit later in the same corridor:
#.#######.#
#....@K...#########
#######.............
You hit the kobold, but do no damage.
The kobold is moderately wounded.
You block the kobold's attack.
You miss the kobold.
The kobold hits you with a short sword!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
Oh crap. I've got my hitpoint warning jacked up pretty high -- 50% --
but this is still bad news. Time to retreat. Shift-x, look for my best
line of defense... find it. I choose a rectangular, medium sized pillar
in order to minimize the chance of a bad keystroke. Some while later,
whack whack dead.
Ooh, that ] was an elven cloak. I've decided to go with heavy armour all
things being equal; this makes them a little less equal -- but the
investment in armour skill that came with being a Fighter will be pretty
much for naught if I go the light armour/stealth route. And I don't have
any light armour yet anyway. In any case I'm reminded by the find to set
my armour to l, my cloak to k, and my shield to j -- just a little thing
I do to increase convenience in the dressing room (the earlier letters
will gradually be backfilled). I wear it immediately, since the chance
of it being -1 or lower are small, and since it's too early to test
armours safely, a cursed +0 cloak will leave me no worse off than I was
before.
I find a red potion. There's nobody around. I quaff it. It's healing. Good.
I sight a hobgoblin. It's wielding a club. I immediately start backing
up to -- you guessed it -- the corridor from the previous screenshots.
Because it was armed, I get good XP when I kill it, and I level. Great!
Aw, crap. D:1 shows itself to be divided into two sections, one with the
first four staircases and the other with the last two. I'll be a little
weak going into D:2.
D:2
---
A relatively open level. Yellow alert.
Drat, a bat. Back, whack, back, whack, smack.
A couple of minor incidents later, a threesome involving a hobgoblin,
rat, and cockroach goes poorly.
#.############
###.............
#.........######
## ###.........#
.... #.+.........#
.....#######.#.........#
...........#...........#
...........r#....########
....)......ag@...#
....?.......#....#
You hit the hobgoblin, but do no damage.
The hobgoblin is heavily wounded.
The hobgoblin hits you but doesn't do any damage.
You miss the hobgoblin.
The hobgoblin hits you!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The cockroach is gonna be a problem, since if I'm not careful, I'll die
by a thousand cuts as I retreat. My plan will be to retreat up and to
the right, then circle around to a staircase below and to my right (not
shown above). It's in a corridor, so it will leave only one monster on
my back as I ascend.
Incredible. Something distracts the cockroach (maybe my stealth?) and
the monster directly on my back is the hobgoblin, which is still bad,
but much better than if it were the cockroach. I drag him up, dance 'til
I'm comfortable with my HP (not waiting 'til full health reduces boredom
and thus the chance of a misstroke), and dispatch him. I then descend
and easily take down the rat and cockroach.
I find a ring of invisibility and finally ID my second potion -- !oHW.
Lucky game so far, strategically speaking. I'm fairly dead set on going
the heavy armour route; otherwise I'd take the hint from the ring of
invisibility and start revising my strategy towarsd a light-armour one.
I level up, deciding to put my free stat point into Dex -- a fairly safe
bet for a fighter with a mid-speed weapon like the long blades I'll be
using.
A bit later, I become hungry for the first time this game. I take the
chunk of rat flesh I see; it may not be the oldest (which would be
good), but I'd prefer not to risk sickness if I don't have to, and the
other chunks I have might make me sick.
D - a blackened steel ring
Oops, that ring feels deathly cold.
D - a cursed blackened steel ring (left hand)
Use which ability? (? or * to list)
Yup, =ofTeleportation. I gambled, I lost -- it's a little too early to
be sure of a ?oRC. But let's see.
..."nothing appears to happen." Hmm, good news, that's probably Recharging.
...Phooey. Forgetfulness. Just an inconvenience, but now there's only 4
types left to check.
...Teleportation.
...Fear.
...Remove curse! And now I have a handy ring of teleportation to save me
in edge cases of the geography of the Mines (translated into English:
finding the =ofTeleport was actually a Good Thing, and I'll have it on
my person at all times for a good ways into the future.)
Now I'm deep in unexplored territory and facing a jackal. Just one so
far, but there could be more. Goes down quickly.
A potion. Poison. But as a fighter, I take it in stride. Still a silly,
hasty move to quaff-test it here, though.
The last scroll is ID. I decide not to ID the teleport ring. No potions,
scrolls or wands to ID. OK, let's check that short sword. Heh, a cursed
-2,+0. Time to make my first junkpile... done. It receives the ?oF, the
cursed blade, and my non-short-blades weapons. (I'm still waffling on
the light armours I've picked up, and won't be reacting to them one way
or another until I get a second ?oRC.)
Turns out that this section of D:2 only leads between the second of the
already-seen staircases on D:1 and one staircase to D:3, so back up and
down again I go.
D:1
---
Ooh, a potion of might. I'm gonna dive for as much trouble I can
generate, as quickly as possible, until it wears off. That,
unfortunately, turns out to be "no trouble." Well, at least I got a
spare at the same time.
D:2 cleared, off to do the missing staircase. Ooh, a potion of
paralysis. Glad to have that out of the way. Some probably overhasty
read-IDing teaches me ?oCurseArmour (gets my shield), ?ofEnchantWeaponI,
and ?ofDetectCurse. Nice.
D:3
---
I'm a little hungry once I finish this mini-branch, so off to D:3 I
rush. And quickly meet Ijyb. In ring mail. On an open level. Preceded by
a goblin and a rat. OK, time to stairscum. I separate them into
rat-and-goblin first, then Ijyb. Besides the threat reduction, this lets
me eat before taking on Ijyb. I quaff that !oMight and descend.
Oh crap, I was so excited by Ijyb I overlooked a snake and an orc, and
now they're all three piled on top of me. Priorities priorities... I
decide first priority is to scope for a corridor. I find one fairly
quickly, at the price of this:
#.. g
#.. #.#
#.## #.#
#<.# #.#
#..# #@#
####+#..#'#S#
#.........g.#
#..................
(The ' was a closed door when I first passed it.)
I instinctively press i. OK... 2 potions of healing, 2 scrolls of
teleportation, 1 scroll that could potentially be blinking, and my ring
of teleportation; that's it. Best to just start whacking. With my
enhanced strength, I get lucky and take out the snake in one blow. I'm
now at 19 health and facing Ijyb. My strength is helping punch through
his ring mail, but a tackle is forming from the other side. Fortunately,
it's corked by that goblin. Ijyb down, now I just need to handle that
orc and I can run back the way I came if needed. No need in the end; I
mow down the whole tackle like August grass. That's the power of a
potion of might in the early game.
Having just generated a lot of items, I junkpile again (using the stairs
as a marker as I usually do), and finally attend to what that ?oDC
revealed. Dagger schmagger -- oh wait! It's of venom! Cool. I set it to
"a" and my short sword to "b". I ascend up the stairs before testing
armour, and don't hesitate the uncursed light armours... but they turn
out to be bland and I drop them. I'm too scared to wield-test Ijyb's
ring mail without remove curse in my pack. Plus, I'd really rather wait
until I can "generate" a cursed weapon and a cursed armour at the same
time, so I get two uncursings for the price of one.
I also determine that I accidentally picked up the snake's corpse
without dissecting it. :-)
!oPorridge -- and a spare. Nice luck so far -- nothing spectacular, but
lots of little things. I'm really starting to mow things down now that
I've got the venomous dagger.
Terence. But he's unarmed and unarmoured. COME GET SOME! He does.
Gloves. +0 vanilla uncursed. Every bit helps.
!oRestoreAbilities.
Notice I'm still not sweating the cursed shield -- it's simply no sweat.
.#....# #.#..#.#....#.#
##....# #.#.........#.#
#... #.#.##........#
######.#....#.#######
#...@..##............
#########.#.#.#######
Heh. You can't fool ME, crawly boy.
######.#....#.####
+@.....##.........
#########.#.#.####
Told ya so.
R - 16 poisoned needles
Your equipment suddenly weighs less.
You open the door.
You see here a ring mail.
You are being weighed down by all of your possessions.
B - a ring mail
First time I've been encumbered this game. Dumping some clubs, ammo,
worthless scrolls, and rotting flesh does the trick. On an unrelated
note, I remember that silly ring of invisibility for the first time
since getting it. That's the problem with the silly things --
remembering they exist. It's like they're invisible or something.
Ctrl-O firing blanks, stair check finds 6 staircases, no cyan areas on
the map... headin' on down.
D:4
---
A hound. Ouch. I start backing up into a convenient corridor. Ooh, a
hound *pack*. Well... COME GET SOME! And they do. Ahh, hounds are so yummy.
t - a chunky metal-bound book
It's the ice/air flavored Minor Magic. Normally it would be something to
mull over, but I want to demonstrate the simplest kind of game possible
(I'll be taking Trog later on, for example), so I'll consider it junk.
And then come those immortal words.
You hear a shout!
Move the cursor around to observe a square.
Press '?' for a monster description.
An ogre.
It is wielding a giant spiked club.
#######
.......
.....#
###O....###
#.@........
#.##.######
#.#
#.#
#.#
######.#####
#..........#
#..........#
#......<...#
Selected inventory items: all darts were foolishly dumped as junk, 3
Teleportation, one un-ID'd scroll that might be Blinking, 1 Heal Wounds,
4 Healing, 3 Might, one ring of teleportation, one of invisibility...
...and one dagger of venom. And I'm not hungry.
D:3
---
There is a stone staircase leading upwards here.
The ogre hits you with a giant spiked club!
Ouch! That really hurt!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
Entering...
You climb upwards.
(Don't worry. Be happy.) A few dozen turns later:
You miss the ogre.
You block the ogre's attack.
You hit the ogre, but do no damage.
The ogre looks ill.
The ogre hits you but doesn't do any damage.
You hit the ogre.
The ogre looks even sicker.
The ogre is lightly wounded.
You block the ogre's attack.
About a dozen turns of renewed pillar-dancing later he succumbs and I'm
one happy level sixer.
If I hadn'ta had the dagger of venom, I'd probably have gone the !oMight
route again. These will become less relevant later on; might as well use
them now.
That un-ID'd scroll was ?ofNoise. :-)
D:4
---
Note that I haven't drunken *one* *single* !ofH* so far. Not to blow my
own horn, just saying one needs to consume fewer of them than one might
think.
!oSlowing. Fortunately I'd retreated to explored territory before
quaffing it.
Vanilla boots.
Ogre (some advance notice this time). I drag him up some nearby stairs,
only to find I'm in a cul-de-sac. Oops. I descend, only to find a bat
blocking my route. Thank God it's a bat; the cork pops quickly. The
shortest path to the known-safe stairs leads dangerously close to
unknown territory, so I take a longer, winding, but safer one.
D:3
---
Repeat previous technique, levelup.
D:4
---
?oMagicMapping.
Giant iguana, whom I underestimate. Retreat, expecting to pillar dance,
but it succumbs to poison long before that.
Stair check reveals we're short by a down staircase.
D:5
---
One strategic note here. I've been able to dive pretty fast, and what
with my primary weapon skill being turned off, I have a whole lot of
unused XP in my pool. This, and the missed staircase, put me on green
alert (yellow if not for the venomous dagger).
I'm really getting bogged down with things I can't junkpile, and may
have to make an emergency (pre-Temple) stash soon.
Ice beast in the distance. I back up to a corridor, drop all my potions,
and take it on. Crap -- I'm not getting past its AC (and it's poison
resistant). I pick up a Might and a HW. I have to retreat or quaff the
HW; I retreat and I'm suddenly on very thin ice as far as a possible is
concerned, so I decide for the HW so my Might doesn't run out before the
beast is dead. It works. It also lets me take out a pesky phantom, which
could have formed the seed for a tackle.
For the second time this game, I become hungry with no chunks to eat.
A snake. As usual with fast monsters, I retreat before attacking even
though it's not (any longer) that dangerous -- I just hate giving
monsters free attacks unnecessarily. The snake panics, but its
inefficient retreat-movement algorithm gives me one last melee whack as
it doesn't-round a corner. The blow takes. Yummy snake.
?oRandomUselessness.
I see in short succession a kobold, the Temple entrance, and an ogre.
Retreating "yields" a giant ant as well, so I retreat only just enough
to make sure it, too, will be included in the bottleneck, then get
a-whackin'. The kobold goes down first; not sure that was wise. Oops,
was still using my short sword, left over from the ice beast/phantom
encounter. OK, whack whack retreat... I seem to have accidentally shaken
the ant... clunk. Heading towards the Temple, I sight the ant again,
this time close up. No point in running, but the poison takes it down
quickly. I head to a quiet place and shift-5 until the poisoning *it*
gave *me* times out, because trying to do logistics while poisoned only
leads to annoyances. And then I head down.
Ecumenical Temple
-----------------
First off, stash time. Here's my inventory before the stash process:
Inventory:
Hand weapons
a - a +2,+0 elven dagger of venom (weapon)
b - a +0,+1 short sword
f - a dwarven short sword
G - an elven dagger
K - a dagger
L - a dagger
M - an orcish dagger
Missiles
s - 22 darts
Armour
h - a cursed +0 shield (worn)
i - a +0 pair of boots (worn)
j - a +0 pair of gloves (worn)
k - a +0 elven cloak (worn)
l - a +0 scale mail (worn)
m - a ring mail
q - an elven robe
t - an elven robe
A - an orcish ring mail
B - a ring mail
F - a robe
J - a robe
Comestibles
d - 4 bread rations
g - 4 meat rations
p - 4 apples
w - 11 strawberries
x - a chunk of giant ant flesh
y - a pear
P - a sausage
Scrolls
c - 2 scrolls of identify
e - 4 scrolls of teleportation
u - 2 scrolls labeled EGYBOQ {tried}
I - 2 scrolls of fear
N - 2 scrolls of enchant weapon I
Jewellery
z - a ring of invisibility (right hand)
D - an uncursed blackened steel ring
Potions
n - 2 potions of might
o - 7 potions of healing
r - 2 potions of heal wounds
v - 2 potions of porridge
...and here it is afterwards.
Inventory:
Hand weapons
a - a +2,+0 elven dagger of venom (weapon)
b - a +0,+1 short sword
f - a dwarven short sword
G - an elven dagger
K - a dagger
L - a dagger
M - an orcish dagger
Missiles
s - 22 darts
Armour
h - a cursed +0 shield (worn)
i - a +0 pair of boots (worn)
j - a +0 pair of gloves (worn)
k - a +0 elven cloak (worn)
l - a +0 scale mail (worn)
Comestibles
g - 2 meat rations
x - a chunk of giant ant flesh
P - a sausage
Scrolls
e - 2 scrolls of teleportation
I - 2 scrolls of fear
Jewellery
z - a ring of invisibility (right hand)
D - an uncursed blackened steel ring
Potions
n - a potion of might
o - 3 potions of healing
r - 1 potion of heal wounds
The unID'd scrolls were indeed recharging, and I was perhaps foolish to
have carried them so long, let alone the known ?oEWI. But I hate making
ad-hoc stashes.
And so ends the first installment. The second, if it comes, will cover
the period from the Temple to the Mines or, if the Mines are really
early, then up to the Lair.
R. Dan Henry
wrote:
>Note that I haven't drunken *one* *single* !ofH* so far. Not to blow my
>own horn, just saying one needs to consume fewer of them than one might
>think.
Technically, you *did*. You IDed !ofH by drinking it. (Also appears to
be how you IDed !ofHW.)
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
sheepy
Bravo Erik!
Very well written, and it has given me new enthusiasm to play Crawl again.
Keep it coming!
--
Ash Ellis
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
--Douglas Adams
Erik Piper
Got me!
Uh...
The potions you quaff to ID have just been drunk a *little* -- you know,
like being just a *little* pregnant. :-) See?
Erik