OcIe: WHY XOM

[sir_laser]

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.10-a0-2487-gdd3d67d character file.

372 sirlaser the Covert (level 6, -2/36 HPs)
             Began as an Octopode Ice Elementalist on Dec 3, 2011.
             Was an Initiate of Nemelex Xobeh.
             a card of wild magic (38 damage)
             ... on Level 4 of the Dungeon.
             The game lasted 00:11:31 (3362 turns).

sirlaser the Covert (Octopode Ice Elementalist)     Turns: 3362, Time: 00:11:31

HP  -2/36        AC  1     Str  7      XL: 6   Next:  2%
MP  13/17        EV 15     Int 19      God: Nemelex Xobeh [......]
Gold 143         SH  0     Dex 13      Spells:  3 memorised, 10 levels left

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : .    c - ornate deck of wonders {drawn: 2} {god gif
Res.Cold  : . . .   Warding    : . .  (no shield)
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : .    (helmet restricted)
Res.Acid. : . . .   Res.Corr.  : .    (no amulet)
Res.Poison: .       Clarity    : .    (no ring)
Res.Elec. : .       Spirit.Shd : .    (no ring)
Sust.Abil.: . .     Stasis     : .    (no ring)
Res.Mut.  : .       Ctrl.Telep.: .    (no ring)
Res.Rott. : .       Levitation : .    (no ring)
Saprovore : . . .   Ctrl.Flight: .    (no ring)
                                      (no ring)
                                      (no ring)

@: slightly resistant to hostile enchantments, extremely stealthy
A: almost no armour, amphibious, beak, camouflage 1, tentacles 3, AC +1
a: Renounce Religion


You were on level 4 of the Dungeon.
You worshipped Nemelex Xobeh.
Nemelex Xobeh was noncommittal.
You were not hungry.

You visited 1 branch of the dungeon, and saw 4 of its levels.

You collected 123 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 a - a +1,+0 dagger (quivered)
 g - a +2,+1 elven whip
 j - a +1,+0 dwarven short sword
Armour
 e - a +2 dwarven cloak
 f - a +0 chain mail
 i - a +0 animal skin
 n - a +0 elven chain mail
 r - a +0 dwarven chain mail
 x - a +2 ring mail
Comestibles
 m - an orange
 s - 2 apples
 u - a meat ration
 A - a chunk of rat flesh
Scrolls
 h - a scroll of curse armour {unknown}
 o - a scroll of fear {unknown}
 p - 2 scrolls of detect curse {unknown}
 q - 3 scrolls of teleportation {unknown}
 t - a scroll of remove curse {unknown}
 v - a scroll of identify {unknown}
Potions
 k - a potion of invisibility {unknown}
 l - 2 potions of heal wounds {unknown}
 w - a potion of curing {unknown}
 z - a potion of might {unknown}
Books
 b - a book of Frost   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   *Freeze                            Ice                          1
   *Throw Frost                       Conjuration/Ice              2
   Ozocubu's Armour                   Charms/Ice                   3
   Throw Icicle                       Conjuration/Ice              4
   *Summon Ice Beast                  Ice/Summoning                4
   Condensation Shield                Ice/Transmutation            4
Miscellaneous
 c - an ornate deck of wonders {drawn: 2} (in tentacle) {god gift}
 y - a plain deck of changes


   Skills:
 - Level 5.9 Dodging
 + Level 8.9 Stealth
 - Level 2.0 Unarmed Combat
 - Level 6.4 Spellcasting
 - Level 5.7 Conjurations
 - Level 6.1 Summonings
 - Level 6.4 Ice Magic
 - Level 6.7 Evocations


You had 10 spell levels left.
You knew the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Success   Level  Hunger
a - Freeze                Ice            #####        Excellent   1    None
b - Summon Ice Beast      Ice/Summ       #####.....   Very Good   4    Honeycomb
i - Throw Frost           Ice/Conj       #####..      Excellent   2    None


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (4/27)           
Temple: D:4-7       

Altars:
Nemelex Xobeh
Okawaru
Yredelemnul

Annotations
D:3 exclusion: Crazy Yiuf, Crazy Yiuf


                    Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You cannot wear most types of armour.
You can wear up to eight rings at the same time.
You are amphibious.
You have a beak for a mouth.
Your rubbery body absorbs attacks (AC +1).
Your skin changes color to match your surroundings (Stlth).
You have a mass of large tentacles instead of arms.


Message History

3 jackals come into view.
You draw a card... It is Experience.
This is an ornate deck of wonders {drawn: 1} {god gift}.
You feel more experienced.
Your Dodging skill gained 3 levels and is now at level 5!
Your Stealth skill gained 5 levels and is now at level 8!
Your Spellcasting skill gained 2 levels and is now at level 6!
Your Conjurations skill gained 4 levels and is now at level 5!
Your Summonings skill gained 4 levels and is now at level 6!
Your Ice Magic skill gained 3 levels and is now at level 6!
Your Evocations skill gained 6 levels and is now at level 6!
You have reached level 6!
Your experience leads to an increase in your attributes!
Increase (S)trength, (I)ntelligence, or (D)exterity?
You feel clever.
You draw a card... It is Wild Magic.
You are caught in an extremely strong localised spatial distortion!
Ouch! That really hurt!
You die...
Your body disappears without a glow.

             #.###
             #...#
             ###.#
               #.#
 ##+      ######'###
 ....     #........#
 h.... ####........#
....h..#..'........#
......h'@##........#
.......####........#
 .....    #........#
 ####     #........#
          ##########


You could see 3 jackals.

Vanquished Creatures
  A scorpion (D:4)
  A snake (D:4)
  A snake skeleton (D:4)
  A worm (D:2)
  A giant mite (D:3)
  3 giant geckos (D:1)
  An ooze (D:2)
  An orc (D:3)
  2 giant cockroaches
  14 hobgoblins
  A jackal (D:3)
  3 small snakes
  7 bats
  2 giant newts
  6 goblins
  9 kobolds
  10 rats
64 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (others)
  A giant newt (D:1)
  4 toadstools
5 creatures vanquished.

Grand Total: 69 creatures vanquished

Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1      | sirlaser, the Octopode Ice Elementalist, began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1      | Reached XP level 1. HP: 11/11 MP: 3/3
   444 | D:1      | Reached XP level 2. HP: 13/17 MP: 4/4
   448 | D:1      | Learned a level 2 spell: Throw Frost
   476 | D:1      | Reached skill level 1 in Unarmed Combat
  1286 | D:2      | Reached XP level 3. HP: 17/21 MP: 4/6
  1589 | D:2      | Found a basalt altar of Yredelemnul.
  2384 | D:3      | Reached XP level 4. HP: 19/27 MP: 9/9
  2392 | D:3      | Learned a level 4 spell: Summon Ice Beast
  2804 | D:3      | Noticed Crazy Yiuf
  2876 | D:3      | Reached skill level 4 in Spellcasting
  2995 | D:3      | Found an iron altar of Okawaru.
  3141 | D:4      | Reached skill level 1 in Summonings
  3229 | D:4      | Reached XP level 5. HP: 31/31 MP: 4/12
  3238 | D:4      | Found a sparkling altar of Nemelex Xobeh.
  3260 | D:4      | Became a worshipper of Nemelex Xobeh
  3286 | D:4      | Received a gift from Nemelex Xobeh
  3361 | D:4      | Reached skill level 5 in Dodging
  3361 | D:4      | Reached skill level 8 in Stealth
  3361 | D:4      | Reached skill level 5 in Conjurations
  3361 | D:4      | Reached XP level 6. HP: 36/36 MP: 13/17
  3362 | D:4      | a card of wild magic


Experience followed by Wild Magic. I'm pretty sure Xom's hand was in this

In any case, is this build viable for surviving the early game and into the mid game, an OcIe worshipping Nemelex? Thanks.

[KoboldLord]

Scumming wonders for experience cards is only suitable if you're planning to discard characters that don't get good results. Wonders can kill or permanently cripple you, as you can see, so it's most useful when used with Nemelex's granted abilities.

Ice elementalists should have no need for divine powers of any kind for the early game, though. Throw Icicle will kill absolutely everything, even cold-immunes, until you get some other options online. That deck of wonders will still have its experience cards in it after you've built up your piety high enough to Triple Draw it more safely.

[sir_laser]

Yeah, noted. The wiki said not to do it, but now... A painful lesson.

Thanks for replying.

[sir_laser]

Ok, maybe the reason why that miscast did so much damage was because the deck was a ornate deck of wonders. I've started another game and drew blind from a plain deck, got 3 experience cards in a row

[Blade]

Ok, maybe the reason why that miscast did so much damage was because the deck was a ornate deck of wonders. I've started another game and drew blind from a plain deck, got 3 experience cards in a row

No, no, no. You're learning exactly the wrong thing from this. Plain wonders is as bad as others or arguably even worse to draw blind from. The card power on the only worthwhile wonders cards (experience, helix) is abysmal, making experience hardly worth drawing past the early-game and helix simply a mutation pot that gives you only one mutation.

The bad ones, though, are still terrible. Shuffle is blind to card power, so you can still shoot yourself in the foot consistently. Wild magic, meanwhile, can still give you deep red glow from plain decks.

Others have said it; I will repeat it -- DO NOT DRAW BLIND FROM WONDERS.

(edit: whoops, accidentally thanked. Ah, well)

[greepish]

If he's start scumming, it can give one a boost, though. Not encouraging that by any means tho.

[sir_laser]

In both of these games I've sacrificed three bread rations for an early deck of wonders (experience), but it sounds like a bad idea? Only triple draw from these decks?

[KoboldLord]

Whether wonder-scumming is a good or bad tactic depends on whether you think start-scumming in general is a good or bad tactic. If you're prepared to discard 80-90% of your characters to bad draws from your very first deck, the remaining 10% will be slightly advantaged by that lucky first deck and will probably die on a slightly deeper dungeon level because of that advantage. It's open to question which will take less real-time to build up a particularly good character, but in the end you're more likely to figure out how to keep that character later on if you learn how to keep a marginal early-game character alive.

Note that mass damage from Wild Magic is not the only horrible, horrible effect you can get from wonders. You can also summon permanent post-endgame demons, banish yourself to the Abyss, cripple yourself with unmitigated berserkitis or slow movement, swap your critical intelligence stat with your rubbish strength, and more.

[XuaXua]

There was that one time a Legendary neutered my caster by swapping my Int and Str.

[sir_laser]

Thanks for the replies everyone. So what use is the Deck of Wonders?

[Blade]

Thanks for the replies everyone. So what use is the Deck of Wonders?

It's a piety-heavy way for Nemelex worshippers to gain significant advantages. Legendary Helix keeps your muts under control while adding new good ones and legendary Experience acts as a potion of experience. Those are by far the best ones. Ornate Helix and other Experience cards are also generally (always, in the case of experience) good. The extremely dangerous cards just mean that you shouldn't draw blind, not that the decks are useless.

[greepish]

Right, triple draw is only 2 piety. So even if you don't triple then stack, you should always triple draw the first deck of wonder. In the beginning, experience is so useful, if you have a bunch of id scrolls you can attempt to id burn and stop if you hit something bad.

A word of caution on triple drawing twice is that not all decks have more than 4 cards! You could end up triple drawing once, then triple drawing again and being stuck with only shuffle.

[sir_laser]

Almost none of this is on the Wiki.

[Blade]

Almost none of this is on the Wiki.

And here you learn your most important lesson of all: The wiki cannot be trusted. It's severely out-of-date in places, and severely wrong in others. Use the LearnDB (http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/bots) instead, and/or ask your questions in the Tavern. You will get much better results.

[njvack]

A word of caution on triple drawing twice is that not all decks have more than 4 cards! You could end up triple drawing once, then triple drawing again and being stuck with only shuffle.

Ah, that's why triple draw on Wonders isn't always safe.

Somewhat relatedly, when does Oddities come into play? Once you've identified a card, are you guaranteed to draw that card, or can it be swapped with something from the Deck of Oddities when you draw it?

[greepish]

Oddities are just randomly in the decks, they don't change cards. E.g. if you stack a deck and there's no oddities in it, you'll draw no oddities And sometimes you will stack a deck and you can find some oddity cards in it.

[XuaXua]

Almost none of this is on the Wiki.

And here you learn your most important lesson of all: The wiki cannot be trusted. It's severely out-of-date in places, and severely wrong in others. Use the LearnDB (http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/bots) instead, and/or ask your questions in the Tavern. You will get much better results.

OR YOU CAN EDIT THE WIKI YOURSELF BECAUSE HOLY CRAP IT IS A WIKI AND THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF IT BEING A WIKI.

[greepish]

Yeah, but we're lazy (actually I edit a lot, but the nemelex guide is gonna need a lot of work :O)

[Blade]

Almost none of this is on the Wiki.

And here you learn your most important lesson of all: The wiki cannot be trusted. It's severely out-of-date in places, and severely wrong in others. Use the LearnDB (http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/bots) instead, and/or ask your questions in the Tavern. You will get much better results.

OR YOU CAN EDIT THE WIKI YOURSELF BECAUSE HOLY CRAP IT IS A WIKI AND THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF IT BEING A WIKI.

Or you could use the LearnDB, which works perfectly well already.

[joellercoaster]

Or you could use the LearnDB, which works perfectly well already.

No, it doesn't.

It's not as bad as the Wiki, but I've certainly been burnt by out-of-date learndb entries before. "Perfectly" is a strong statement

[cerebovssquire]

Well, you can't "secretly" edit the LearnDB at least, if you write rubbish or wrong information in there people will usually immediately delete or edit it.

Oh, also, if I was interested in improving the wiki I would start by deleting 90% of character guides. I have the feeling people wouldn't like this.

[Blade]

Or you could use the LearnDB, which works perfectly well already.

No, it doesn't.

It's not as bad as the Wiki, but I've certainly been burnt by out-of-date learndb entries before. "Perfectly" is a strong statement

Perfectly well != perfectly. When saying that it works perfectly well, I was merely saying that it works just fine, not that it works perfectly.

[Jeremiah]

It's kind of weird that you don't know how many cards are left in the deck; you would have thought anyone except a troll berserker would know how to count.

Maybe Nemelex's "Mark Four" ability that is almost never used could be replaced with "card counting" or something, allowing you to tell how many cards are left in the deck without knowing what any of them are.

[sir_laser]

Game Design Discussion thread?

[njvack]

It's kind of weird that you don't know how many cards are left in the deck; you would have thought anyone except a troll berserker would know how to count.

It's also kind of strange that you can somehow carry the deck around without seeing any of the cards in it. It's not like a regular deck of cards; it's magic.

[XuaXua]

Solution for Nemelex: Increase gift timeout by 10%, ensure decks of Nemelex followers get +1 card in every deck vs. any non-follower, and on the last draw of the deck make the message (for everyone) read, "This last draw of the deck consumes all of the magic left and the rest of the deck disintegrates. Your hands are empty." Or something less wordy.

[njvack]

That doesn't really change this -- there could just be two shuffle cards left. In fact, since you could always get really unlucky and have a Wonders deck with nothing but Shuffles, Triple Draw can't ever be totally safe. She's a trickster!