DCSS 0.5 - Distortion Brand As Main Weapon?
Xares
The NaVM in my current game accidentally wielded a falchion of
distortion, and I'm not sure if he should unwield it or just take it as
his main weapon.
The risk involved in unwielding the falchion is that he may be sent
directly to the abyss. Being a slow-runner, I don't think the naga will
survive long without burning lots of charges in the wand of haste.
However, he did get a ring of teleportation, which may make it easier to
find the exit.
If the naga uses the falchion as his main weapon, he won't get any xp
when a monster is hit by the falchion and gets banished. However, the
naga's combat style is not a melee-based one; usually he just applies
poison or Makhleb's minor destruction from afar, and stabs his enemies
for a while when they gets into the range. If the situation gets hairy,
he resorts to mephitic cloud or Makhleb's greater servants.
Thus, I'm asking for your advice on this dilemma. Both of the two
solutions sound reasonable to me, but I don't want to ruin this naga with
my possibly imprudent decision. Never got one so deep into the dungeon :D
Any suggestions or comments will be appreciated. And sorry for my
English, it's not my native language.
His full story here:
http://www.chaosforge.org/crawl/index.php?
title=Engmos_the_Naga_Venom_Mage#Round_12
Character dump, trimmed:
Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.5 (crawl-ref) character file.
Engmos the Agitator (Naga Venom Mage) Turns: 24259, Time: 06:18:16
HP 113/113 AC 27 Str 13 Exp: 13/48267 (4), need: 9932
MP 28/28 EV 11 Int 16 God: Makhleb ******
Gold 1686 SH 9 Dex 15 Spells: 3 memorised, 20 levels
left
Res.Fire : + + . See Invis. : + p - orc falchion (distort)
Res.Cold : + . . Warding : . s - +0 leather armour {rC+}
Life Prot.: . . . Conserve : . M - +3 shield of Resistance {rF+ rC+
MR}
Res.Poison: + Res.Corr. : . v - +2 wizard hat
Res.Elec. : . Clarity : + f - +1 dwarf cloak
Q - +2 pair of gloves
Sust.Abil.: . Rnd.Telep. : . y - +6 naga barding
Res.Mut. : . Ctrl.Telep.: . I - amulet of clarity
Res.Slow : . Levitation : . D - +2 ring of evasion
Saprovore : . . . Ctrl.Flight: . c - ring of Virtue {Fire AC+5}
@: praying, very resistant to magic, quite stealthy
A: spit poison, poison resistance, fast metabolism 1, see invisible,
deformed body 1, mutation resistance 1, Str +1
a: Spit Poison, Minor Destruction, Lesser Servant of Makhleb, Major
Destruction, Greater Servant of Makhleb, Renounce Religion
Inventory:
Hand weapons
a - a +6,+5 elven dagger of speed
// Previous main weapon.
b - the -4,-2 spear of the Gods (quivered) {AC+3 Int+4}
// Switch for casting and for when I need extra AC.
p - an uncursed runed orcish falchion of distortion (weapon)
// Wielded out of greed.
Armour
f - a +1 dwarven cloak (worn)
s - a +0 leather armour of cold resistance (worn)
s - a +0 leather armour of cold resistance (worn)
v - a +2 wizard hat (worn)
y - a +6 naga barding (worn)
M - the +3 shield of Resistance (worn) {rF+ rC+ MR}
Q - a +2 pair of gloves (worn)
Magical devices
k - a wand of hasting {zapped: 1}
n - a wand of teleportation {recharged}
o - a wand of fireball {zapped: 1}
O - a wand of fire {zapped: 1}
R - a wand of cold {zapped: 1}
Jewellery
c - the ring of Virtue (left hand) {Fire AC+5}
l - an uncursed amulet of warding
D - a +2 ring of evasion (right hand)
E - an uncursed ring of invisibility
I - an amulet of clarity (around neck)
J - an uncursed ring of teleportation
Potions
t - 2 potions of healing
w - 2 potions of heal wounds
x - a potion of resistance
H - a potion of speed
You have 4 experience left.
Skills:
+ Level 9 Fighting
- Level 9 Short Blades
- Level 2 Long Blades
+ Level 8 Dodging
- Level 6 Stealth
+ Level 5 Shields
+ Level 3 Traps & Doors
+ Level 2 Unarmed Combat
+ Level 7 Spellcasting
+ Level 6 Conjurations
+ Level 4 Divinations
- Level 2 Air Magic
- Level 8 Poison Magic
- Level 12 Invocations
+ Level 1 Evocations
You have 20 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:
Your Spells Type Power Success Level
c - Mephitic Cloud Pois/Air/Conj ####...... Very Good 3
d - Detect Creatures Divn ####... Great 2
s - Sting Pois/Conj ##### Excellent 1
// There's a Book of Flame in his stash. Once his conjuration is improved
// enough, he will learn at least one spell (sticky flame) in that book.
Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations
Your muscles are strong (Str +1).
You have a fast metabolism.
You are somewhat resistant to further mutation.
//Racial mutations were trimmed.
Nils
First off: Unwielding the weapon of distortion may send you into the
abyss, it may also do nothing at all or just blink you away.. I don't
know the chances, but unless you have bad luck you may just see a minor
unwielding effect, and that's it.
Second: Beeing banished into the abyss is not *that* bad in your
situation. Your stealth skill is okay, so you have good chances to sneak
around in the abyss for a while. If tough monsters approach you:
teleport yourself away before you're into trouble. This will reset the
abyss and give you a new chance to find an exit (or a shrine).
Next option: If you find a shrine of Lugonu in the abyss you can convert
and leave the abyss. Lugonu is a *very* powerfull god. If you survive
Makhlebs punishments is another story though.
I suggest that you just a couple of chaos knight of lugonu games. You
will start in the abyss, and that is an excellent way to get a feeling
how dangerous the abyss really is. (I don't know if this is considered
cheating or not though).
David Ploog
[snip good analysis of Abyss]
> I suggest that you just a couple of chaos knight of lugonu games. You will
> start in the abyss, and that is an excellent way to get a feeling how
> dangerous the abyss really is. (I don't know if this is considered cheating
> or not though).
It's not cheating at all. At least, I have proposed to add the Chaosknight
of Lugonu for two reasons:
1. Players can get a feeling for the Abyss. This seems good to me because
it's a bit saddening to only get abyssical experience with banished
characters where it hurts more when they die.
2. To provide a thematic way of starting with Lugonu who seems to be an
interesting god to start with. (And you can't pick up this god at the
Temple, of course.)
That said, there was some criticism about the CK[L] but positive feedback
as well. We'll see what happens to the combo.
David
a s
> Second: Beeing banished into the abyss is not *that* bad in your
> situation. Your stealth skill is okay, so you have good chances to sneak
> around in the abyss for a while. If tough monsters approach you:
> teleport yourself away before you're into trouble.
For a Naga, who is slow and unable to stall by fleeing, the extra
delay added to teleports in the Abyss is likely to be fatal.
> I suggest that you just a couple of chaos knight of lugonu games. You
> will start in the abyss, and that is an excellent way to get a feeling
> how dangerous the abyss really is. (I don't know if this is considered
> cheating or not though).
It's certainly not cheating to play Chaos Knights of Lugonu. However,
the starting Abyss area for starting Lugonu character is sort of a
"baby" Abyss--I think the story goes that no rune is generated, and
the level of monsters and items generated is lower? Of course you also
begin on an altar of Lugonu and with a gate very nearby.
David Ploog
> On Jun 19, 4:51�pm, Nils <n.pipenbri...@cubic.org> wrote:
>> Second: Beeing banished into the abyss is not *that* bad in your
>> situation. Your stealth skill is okay, so you have good chances to sneak
>> around in the abyss for a while. If tough monsters approach you:
>> teleport yourself away before you're into trouble.
>
> For a Naga, who is slow and unable to stall by fleeing, the extra
> delay added to teleports in the Abyss is likely to be fatal.
I wasn't aware that the OP is a *naga*. Those have the hardest time in
Abyss, as stated.
>> I suggest that you just a couple of chaos knight of lugonu games. You
>> will start in the abyss, and that is an excellent way to get a feeling
>> how dangerous the abyss really is. (I don't know if this is considered
>> cheating or not though).
>
> It's certainly not cheating to play Chaos Knights of Lugonu. However,
> the starting Abyss area for starting Lugonu character is sort of a
> "baby" Abyss--I think the story goes that no rune is generated, and
> the level of monsters and items generated is lower?
The first Abyss area for a CK of L (the one you start in) is indeed an
Abyss light: no rune, toned-down item generation. But already with the
next Abyss wrap you get the real deal!
(Toning down item generation is necessary to prevent startscumming.)
David
JPEG
> The first Abyss area for a CK of L (the one you start in) is indeed an
> Abyss light: no rune, toned-down item generation. But already with the
> next Abyss wrap you get the real deal!
Sorry, but that's wrong!
The starting Abyss for CK of Lugonu is certainly *not* a baby version
of the normal Abyss. There are three differences to a normal visit to
the Abyss:
1) You start out on an altar to Lugonu, and there's a guaranteed exit
nearby.
2) Item generation matches that of Dlvl 1 (including no rune), no
matter how often you wrap around! [*]
3) Monster generation is extreme and matches that of during the orb
run. That also doesn't change with wrap-arounds.
*) This is, indeed, needed to prevent startscumming, seeing how
Lugonuites don't actually *need* the exit to leave. They can easily
wait for the next wrap, try to collect some items and use Lugonu's
first ability to get out.
jpeg
a s
> 3) Monster generation is extreme and matches that of during the orb
> run. That also doesn't change with wrap-arounds.
Ah, I see, thank you--I didn't know this part.
As a side note, just from the title of this thread, I thought the
original poster would be trying to figure out how to use the special
effects from a distortion weapon as their main means of killing
monsters, instead of the actual damage done by the weapon. In the
Swamp this is already almost viable, since anytime you blink or
teleport an aquatic monster and it appears over land, it dies
immediately. By contrast, I do not know if a blinked or teleported non-
swimming, non-flying monster is able to appear over deep water, so for
most of the rest of the game, using water cards to flood levels and
then using your distortion weapon to blink your enemies until they
appear over the deep water may be doomed to failure :) Has anyone
experimented with using Nemelex to get a lot of water cards and then
flooding areas of (for example) branch end vaults so that confused/
Mephitic Clouded enemies will fall in and drown? Of course people love
to drown monsters with Mephitic Cloud already, but I haven't heard of
anyone making their own water for their confused enemies to fall into.
Xares
distortion didn't look like too beneficial to me; thus I let the naga
cleared O:4, ran back to stash to grab all his food, and unwielded the
weapon.
Well, he was caught in a localized spatial distortion but it's no biggie.
Just rest up and his adventure continues.
william tanksley
> The first Abyss area for a CK of L (the one you start in) is indeed an
> Abyss light: no rune, toned-down item generation. But already with the
> next Abyss wrap you get the real deal!
> (Toning down item generation is necessary to prevent startscumming.)
With a Spriggan CK[L]... Why NOT startscum? :-) If you find something
interesting, just leave; if you don't find anything, keep going until
you die. This is reasonably fun, since you get to see fairly advanced
monsters (like a trip to the zoo) and you occasionally get some nice
weapons. I don't see a serious thematic problem, nor does the balance
seem to be a real problem. It's merely... different.
> David
-Wm
b0rsuk
> Thanks for the information. From the discussion, using the falchion of
> distortion didn't look like too beneficial to me; thus I let the naga
Aww, that's a bit of shame. A character who knows what he's doing can
greatly benefit from distortion. A kobold Hellbinder (summoner) of
mine has won, and he used sabre of distortion as his main weapon. It
was melee/summoner hybrid. If you have means of taking care of
monsters at range, blink/teleport from distortion is actually very
helpful. Naga can spit poison, and you said you had Makhleb on your
side. It would be a bit harder than with a summoner, but with some
creativity you could've had a very interesting game. Distortion is
found very rarely, and it's easy to start another naga. Don't forget
nagas have amazing stealth (40), you would likely be able to evade
monsters which are tricky with distortion.
b0rsuk
Xares
> Aww, that's a bit of shame. A character who knows what he's doing can
> greatly benefit from distortion. A kobold Hellbinder (summoner) of mine
> has won, and he used sabre of distortion as his main weapon. It was
> melee/summoner hybrid. If you have means of taking care of monsters at
> range, blink/teleport from distortion is actually very helpful. Naga can
That's sounds interesting :D I want to try it out if another ranged
character got his weapon of distortion.
Although the naga in my current game wasn't banished by unwielding the
falchion of distortion, still he was casted into the abyss later, and
converted to Lugonu there. Without the ability to summon Makhleb's
demons, I feel the naga is more fragile now (those 1s were really helpful
in "ouch" situations).
Maybe it's because I haven't learned how to apply Lugonu's power
properly. Tried to corrupt some levels, but didn't get a sense of it
awesomeness yet. The summoned abyssal residents, while not being hostile,
don't look like minding to hit me. Sometimes I'm forced to teleport away
when being cornered by them and get significant damage. Free blinks are
nice, but I don't really need it that much. Nevertheless, I've not
explored deeper than D:17, so I can't say that for sure. Maybe it will
come handy later.
Nils
> Maybe it's because I haven't learned how to apply Lugonu's power
> properly. Tried to corrupt some levels, but didn't get a sense of it
> awesomeness yet.
Corruption work great in hard levels (last of Elven Halls, Snake Pit,
Slime ect.). The trick is to take the stairs downward to the level,
corrupt the space and immediately take the stairs up again.
The summoned monsters will kill a lot of guards while you're safe.
Another usage: Corruption works with undiggable walls! If you find a
vault that is heavily guarded but you can only approach it from one side
(Last of snake-pit and elven for example) you can often open up a hole
by corrupting the space at the side of the vault.
Also it makes surviving the labyrinth very easy. Just corrupt the space
three or four times.
Banish is not bad either. Perfect to get rid of a powerful bad guy.
Nils
b0rsuk
> Corruption work great in hard levels (last of Elven Halls, Snake Pit,
> Slime ect.). The trick is to take the stairs downward to the level,
> corrupt the space and immediately take the stairs up again.
Enjoy it while it lasts. I already made a proposal to seal level exits
(or at least move stairs randomly) while Corruption is in effect :>.
> The summoned monsters will kill a lot of guards while you're safe.
I don't think actual combat takes place while you're on a different
level. Monsters regenerate, move a bit, summoned creatures time out,
player ghosts. But that's probably it.
> Another usage: Corruption works with undiggable walls! If you find a
> vault that is heavily guarded but you can only approach it from one side
> (Last of snake-pit and elven for example) you can often open up a hole
> by corrupting the space at the side of the vault.
It even opens Slime:6 before royal jelly dies.
> Also it makes surviving the labyrinth very easy. Just corrupt the space
> three or four times.
Does it actually work in 0.5 where labirynths constantly change ?
b0rsuk