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Durable ammo is only interesting if you can't afford to retrieve it - because there are dangerous uniques, statues, or maybe the target is in deep water. In all other cases ammo that stays there and needs to be picked up has no (positive) impact on gameplay. In the first case, it still only matters ...

I don't agree DCSS has lost much flavor. In some areas it definitely gained some. Shadow is a simple and interesting enemy - backstab attack. Swamp is interesting and distinct now, not just enemies but also layout. Hydras have more ways to deal with. Lignification, cancellation, Evocations actually ...

Note degeneration only triggers when you get hit, and a stealthy, dodging, shield-bearing octopode very rarely gets hit. The effect is temporary anyway, as you gain experience your body recovers. In my 3 rune games, I usually don't have a single mutation until orbs of fire. Either I got better at av...

Minotaur in Gauntlet on D:12 wielded this, and took most of my health with it (one hit!) until I berserked him: The +11 Spear of Youthful Indiscretion {pain, +Rage rC++ Str-4 Int+2} It can be evoked to extend its reach. In the hands of one skilled in necromantic magic, it inflicts extra damage on li...

What bothers me a lot with current reaching is that it makes every orc/gnoll/vault guardian fight a chore because I need to manually examine them to figure out of there are any reachers among them. I play the text version.

Interesting idea, I'd never even looked at Jivya as a god choice. Come on! You're playing an octopode!! Assuming the wiki is correct, you can only gain from mutations that could inconvenience other characters. So what if you get talons or hooves. Horns might cause you to lose your dear hat. Armor f...

If Zin is so terrible, why not go Jivya? ;-)

Taking off shield or armour initially is bad advice if you take it out of context, like you did. The point of my post was don't overdo defenses before Temple , or before you get weapon skill to 6-8. It's the same principle as focusing on offense rather than defense first. The two items Fighters star...

I am wondering why Ash would be as valuable as some of the other gods for extended. There used to be a magic school "Divinations", which was all about scrying. Most good players learned the spells by Zot or earlier. The whole reason Ash was conceived was to make it so not all characters r...

The strategy that's effective for me is train Unarmed to around 6, where you get the first mindelay increase, then switch over to Dodging. Around that point melee monsters start to become worrying, and Dodging needs some time before the training pays off. Seriously, how do you play that Spiny Frogs ...

Monks get some stealth which also helps in early game, and when you DO get to temple or early altar you can get going faster. If you use maces, I think non-fighters get a better deal because a flail is +0 accuracy 10 damage, versus +3 accuracy 8 damage. Early characters tend to struggle with hitting...

Why not a... Monk? Demonspawns have +3 Invocations aptitude, you also get decent combat skills plus stealth, which many Demonspawn evolve towards unless they get hooves. Fighters get Armour skill which is not going to be useful if you lose a couple of item slots. If you're after consensus instead of...

Harpoon Shot. (might need to be rebranded)
The attack swamp worms have is tactically interesting. Most casters would rather blast from afar, but if you provide a spell like that some players will find a use. BTW why was Force Lance removed?

I'm trying to make the point that when your melee weapon is non-enchantable, it goes well with a sling because the weapons don't compete for scrolls. Did you have success with a staff of earth? The damage seems pretty underwhelming. I mean I just lost a demigod EE who took his staff from Jogrun. 1d(...

For the purpose of this thread we'll assume the goal is to maximize AC+EV+SH (the sum). this is a hell of an assumption Hey, just wanted to point out my threads are happier without you. Most of what you do are drive-by attacks, snide remarks and passive aggressive behaviour. Real Duvessa would be a...

I think an older version of DCSS had monster descriptions like "on average, it would kill you in 7 attacks. On average, you would kill it in 4 attacks." Is that correct? Did it get removed? Ultimately that's what I care about - approximately how many attacks I need to kill something and h...

Okay so another way of looking at this is that Slings are an early-game enchant scroll sink. In a 3 rune game you may not find enough scrolls to fully enchant 2 weapons. So what melee weapons don't depend on scrolls of enchantment? - artifacts (not reliable) - magical staves (not reliable) - unarmed...

Correct me if I'm wrong. It took me a bunch of years to realize this because Crawl used not to display skill costs so well. But it appears that if you want to use your xp efficiently, it's best not to focus on a single defensive skill (Dodging/Armour/Shields). For the purpose of this thread we'll as...

Do you want large races removed from the game too? I can't think of many ways to better distinguish large folks from small ones. Small/Normal/Large was never my favorite Crawl subsystem.

What about the opposite approach? Expand the set of giant weapons. Giant swords (stone, frost, fire giants), giant axes.

Re: bel Slay the Spire is a clone of a popular and influential board game Dominion. It started a new board gaming genre. What they use for balancing reminds me of neural networks. Another card-based board game, Race for the Galaxy, has a computer version with neural networks. You can download it for...

I'm trying hard to come up with a character that would want to use Slings as their main ranged weapon. The only real argument for choosing Slings seems to be that you might choose them if you find you find a good sling on one of first levels and don't find a bow/crossbow. Depending on your approach ...

Throwing in general might be overpowered, especially relative to Slings which are another 1-handed ranged weapon. I think there's a good case for playing Trolls with a shield. Trolls are really good with large shields and fix all penalties at skill 15. This makes their regeneration more effective be...

I know that a truly random generator will still occasionally generate streaks of suspicious numbers. Stuff like that happens in nature too. Today I lost a low-level Ogre abyssal knight. He was very wounded, only around 20 HP left, and cornered by a giant frog or something like that. Melee skill not ...

For your information, the troll died soon after purchasing his armor on D:13 in an incident involving a death knight and a spectral warrior. It seems to be a pattern to my characters: when I play a dumb race and finally somehow get a good body armor, I get a kick of overconfidence. And anyway, there...

As a rule of thumb, fat monsters tend to have big HD and are dangerous to polymorph. This includes Gastronok, Hydra, Dire Elephant, Bone Dragon. I'm not 100% sure I polymorphed Nicola - he does seem to have 20 HD. I do remember using summoned catoblepas to make very short work of Enchantress. So it ...

Okay, I read that Qazlal degenerates into Stair Defense. I'll stick with Ru. No way I'm sacrificing Artifice now. I've found a Lightning Rod on D:10, and... another one on Lair:1.

I only had one Ru character so far, but I think I can only sacrifice Arcana once? I mean the 3x spell school thing. I just don't see many things a Troll can sacrifice to get to max piety in reasonable time. I'm going to keep both Nimbleness and Durability (armor). Not a hand, not an eye, not courage...

I feel that Trog and Okawaru are doing what I'm already good at. Ru encourages me to gimp that armor. Do you really mean spells, or invocations?

I have a Troll Monk novice of Ru who rejected the first set of sacrifices. I'm training Unarmed, Throwing, and Dodging. An armour boutique at D:9 has this: The quicksilver dragon scales of Cloud Cover {+Blink rC++ MR+ Regen+ Dex-5} (Base 9 AC and 7 encumbrance) Do you think this item alone warrants ...

I absolutely think Trog is good, interesting and varied.

Okawaru used to grant Might and Haste instead of current invocations. That's very close to what he's doing now. I only really like one thing about him: his name.

Which just means I grew bored with Trog around that time. I had a couple of Trog characters and that's it.

Ultimately I think it's a matter of playstyle - and yes, newbies can have their playstyle too. I didn't play the new Trog much - new being the one with Brothers In Arms, Trog's Hand. He makes you feel powerful and it's an easy deity to love. One of his best perks is easy access to antimagic brand. H...

Hi! Use the new Nemelex Xobeh before devs figure out what's going on. It's very inexpensive artillery support. 21 Invocations is admittedly high, but Deal Four can wipe out half of the guardians at Vault:5 and severely wound the rest. Early in the game, a couple of skill levels lets you one shot hyd...

In this case, the grade of stabbing is low, like confuse or nets, right? If then, I think it is a very interesting suggestion. I think the biggest advantage is that the feature is not complicated to explain. Write 'Riposte makes the enemy vulnerable to a momentary stabbing,' and that's it. Of cours...

Okawaru: useful gifts Lol My first Gnoll win was with the obsidian axe from Okawaru. So what if it mesmerizes to every single enemy that you encounter. Brutal stats and friendly demon summoning. I only swapped it when I was banished, and that was for Arga (the axe of speed, another Oka gift). Do yo...

Depends how fine-grained you're talking about. If you're saying 27+ skill levels is overkill, then yeah. If you think 3 levels should be enough for everyone, I disagree. "More successful" is similarly vague. Plants vs Zombies is more successful. Flappy Bird is more successful. There's more...

The way to substantially improve gameplay associated with the skill system is to make it less interactive. A way, definitely, but not necessarily the way. Instead of skills being allocated in tiny intervals which the player can and should change the plan of allocation for continually, give the play...

I suppose if I used a Force Lance on such a monster, it would explode before the push, right? Because Force Lance will no longer push if it outright kills something?

I was also disappointed to find out it didn't protect me from a vortex. I was Nemelexing some merfolk in Shoals and happened to create a tornado. Not only it did deal damage, but it threw me around and resulted in yellow draining.

I like the idea of Charms as a skill that makes equippables stronger. Give bonuses to slaying, armour enchant, rings of stats, amulets of reflection, also a bonus to rings of magical power and the amulet of HP and acrobat. I'm not surprised. So many stats with a single skill. Meanwhile you need to ...

I didn't pay attention to DCSS for the last several years. I'm pleased to say I like the direction it's evolving towards, with a few exceptions*. Much of the cruft and dull monsters/items are gone. Menus provide much more information. I can examine a monster to get a general idea how tough it would ...

Moral of the story: I should have explored the Depths first.

I always struggled with shielded characters for this reason. So even though shields nominally interfere with spellcasting it seems shield bearers actually must cast spells to make up for low damage (in early-mid game). Or use a combo like Formicid of Qazlal (with both Evocations and Invocations).

Oh, I thought I was going insane. I started playing DCSS again after several years. I made a Barachi Fighter + Wu Jian Council, Long Blades, Evocations and all 3 defensive skills. I put several points into Dex. I just... couldn't kill stuff fast enough before they would bruise me pretty badly. I was...

We have a funny verse in Russian, something like Don't be afraid of a knife, But be afraid of a fork: One hit, Four holes. It's a bit funny, but what is it supposed to mean? Pitchforks were commonly used in peasant uprisings, and you can absolutely kill someone with a pitchfork. But it would be eve...

It sounded amusing and interesting at first, but then I realized it's going to be the most conservative Crawl fork ever. Or is it something typical for gamers at large? You could also call it Populist Crawl.

26. Tridents deal more damage than spears. This makes no sense, because with a trident you have almost the same weight. So when you hit someone with a trident, almost the same momentum is distributed across 3x as big an area. A trident would also be 3x less likely to penetrate armor. Tridents were u...

Because they stick to you and last quite long, charms are practically like cheap stat/skill upgrades. Of course everyone wants more stats. Maybe if they came with meaningful downsides, like Repel Missiles protecting against missiles but making you take more damage in melee. But that would just reduc...

I'm not sure about power, but for this spell school it's simply quite thematic. It might lead to removal of Sublimation of Blood and Death's Door, because it in effect makes them redundant. I think it's not a bad idea simply because it makes the school more distinct. On the other hand, do we want Na...

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