They're out to get me this time...

[libelnon]

I'm not expecting to win this, I just found this pretty entertaining, so, the story goes:

I started out as a Draconian Monk, and blazed through D:1-2 quite quickly.

Right, it's level 3 of the Dungeon. I've found myself a nifty Elven Longsword (which I haven't IDed yet) and I'm up to 3 in Long Blades, (3 in short blades too, was training with a dwarven shortsword beforehand) and 5 in unarmed. I feel I'm doing quite well, until I take a better look around this floor.

First thing I meet? The ghost of one of my HESk characters. Crap. They tend to be extremely nasty ghosts. So, I run back up to D:2 and continue. After finding another way down, I get into an empty room where I meet Sigmund. With a glowing scythe. CRAP.

Fortunately, he's asleep and doesn't notice me, so I back off and go the other way. Knowing that the old HESk is still ambling about, and run into a small forested area. Hold on, this looks familiar...

Yep, Crazy Yuif. He takes one swing at me with that quarterstaff of chaos and electrocutes me down 21 HP. OW.

Keep running. Then I bump into Jessica as well. How many uniques are on this level? At least she didn't put up much of a fight - she zapped me with a wand of confusion, and I proceeded to hack her to pieces accidentally while busy trying to bash my head against as many walls as possible.

I'm level 7 now, matured into a Pale draconian. I've gotten myself a buckler and some SH experience, and come back to D:3 to kick some butt. You remember that glowing scythe of Sigmund's?

It's a scythe of Dragon Slaying.

Okawaru help me.

[Konebred]

Ugh, I hate it when that happens. The only thing that is worse is when it is D4, and you are looking for the temple.

[nordetsa]

Ugh, I hate it when that happens. The only thing that is worse is when it is D4, and you are looking for the temple.

And when you go to the temple, the altar of the god you're looking for doesn't exist. It's probably out there somewhere, surrounded by deep water or lava, and the game will never generate a ring/potion of levitation till it's too late.

[libelnon]

Yeah, it proved they were out for me after all. Here comes the whole story from Sigmund onwards:

It's never good when I have a promising character. Something bad always happens.

So, after beating Sigmund and the rest of the horrors of D:3, I managed to net myself some loot. Amulet of the gourmand, mainly, quite a useful item in the absence of any other amulets, and I've collected 2 minor spell books up to this point - a book of changes and a book of air, the latter of which I've learned Repel Missiles, Swiftness, and Flight out of. Not that great at casting them yet, though.

Anyway, I returned to D:7, which is where I was currently in the dungeon, and started exploring. Came across some huge grove thing, full of porcupines, where I found another book of changes under a plant. Huh. What was more interesting, however, was the entrance to the Bailey that I found nearby, with 4 different polearms around it. Such a shame I took blades instead.

The bailey I ended up in had a long, deep moat stretched out, and numerous orcs with spears and halberds trying to poke me across it. Leaving naught but steaming orc corpses in my wake, I used flight and jumped over the tiny gap, and continued around until I bumped into an orc Warrior with a glaive. Uhoh. He pretty quickly diced my health into neat little chunks, so I ran back the other way. Of course, you can only run so far when you've flown over the moat and can't rely on the 11% chance you might not fail the casting to get back over again. So, once he'd cornered me, I pulled out Jessica's wand of confusion and blasted him with it.

He decided to take a swim.

One nasty orc dealt with. The central room of the bailey (it appeared to be a pentagram-shape) held a large, ovular lava moat with an Orc knight in the middle. Not particularly wanting to get into a sword fight with him and his glaive, I made him take a hot bath as well. Unfortunately, what loot that was to be had was sealed away and I couldn't get to it, so I carried on back to the dungeon.

While exploring the glade, I came across a hippogriff. Uhoh! Another strong monster! A quick, failed swordfight lead to me running straight into a band of gnolls instead, so I changed course quickly and confused the hippogriff to get past. It proceeded to slaughter the Gnoll band. Don't you love it when that happens?

Deciding not to risk the Orc Mines yet, as another Orc Warrior gave me quite the run for my money, so I decended to D:8. Some kind of odd, mineshaft like layout lead me to 2 more spellbooks once I'd fought a couple of centaurs - a book of ice, and a book of minor magic. Mephitic Cloud, yay!

Upon decending to D:9, I decided to ID my rings - one turned out to be a cursed ring of hunger, which promtly ended up on the floor, and the other was a ring of life protection. Not bad, good one for later.

As of look, I know Mumma always said don't taste test your potions, and I learned that the hard way as the potion I quaffed was a potion of mutation. Not that it worried me - I must've rolled triple awesome on the table, as I ended up with +1 DEX (great for swords), Fire breath (!) and Clarity! further exploration of the level lead to my first pair of boots (yay), a crossbow (sweet) and I later found another ring - this time of teleportation. Neat!

I returned to D:2 shortly to retrieve a stack of bolts I left earlier, wondering if I'd get a crossbow later. Doing so reminded me of a shrine to Xom to visit later, as it was crammed full of enchanted items just out of reach.

Upon returning to D:9 I was greeted by a moderately ugly troll who hadn't brushed his teeth - or cut his fingernails for a while. I ended up running from him a bit, but as I knew Oka would give me a pretty big reward for killing it, I persisted until I eventually pinned it down and pumped it full of steam and flames. D:10 was not so forgiving, and turned into a repeat of D:3 when I bumped into Erolcha, who was sleeping, and then ran into Joseph while escaping. So, I decided that the Orcish Mines couldn't be that bad after all.

Note to self - invent a little alarm that warns when one is engineering their own downfall.

O:1 started in a humungous assault by orcs of all shapes and sizes, climaxed with the arrival of Eustachio and a host of minor demons he'd summoned, and finally resulted in me being a Ring of Wizardry and a Ring of Fire richer. Awesome. What was more awesome was the presence of a tunnel to the Volcano existing on O:1 as well, which after a close fight with a fire drake and a manticore (caused by running away from said manticore and getting cornered) I left with a potion of EXP, which got me up to level 11 and a number of important skills up as well, and I also discovered a +1 Demon Blade of Fire on a Hog who had been killed in an eruption. YES. It was promptly enhanced to +3 +2.

O:4, however, would prove to be the last I saw of it. O:2 and O:3 went extremely quickly as they were very small, but O:4 was host to a Stone Giant who I just couldn't scratch. I escaped him by fleeing into the Orc fort on that level, and promptly bumped into a High Priest, a Knight, and a Sorcerer, as well as a humongous retinue of lesser Orcs. A few Mephitic Clouds to spread confusion and a steam cloud to cover my escape wasn't enough, it instead lead me back into the Stone Giant's clutches. I made it to a hatch that lead me up again, but into an unlinked and therefore unexplored region of O:3, filled with hundreds more Orcs. And if that wasn't enough, the Stone Giant followed me up, and an Ettin was leading the next group - I managed to back myself into a corner and activate the ring of teleportation (miraculously - I had no evocations skill) but a turn before it activated I was smote down by a priest and killed.

So, what proved to be an amazing start resulted in a public execution. I've trounced my high score though, with 15k points in that round. I'll post up the log if anyone's interested enough to tell me how.

[nordetsa]

I don't think it's a good idea to try the orc mine before lair. Very often they come in too great size (with priest and mage nicely casting spells behind a wall of orcs), and at orc:4 it's going to be one of these: a pack of ogres, a pack of orc warriors with crossbows, orc high priest/mage casting nasty spells/orc warlord who might have really scary branded weapon (I got sent to abyss two times by an orc warlord who had weapon of distortion), or, as in your case, a hefty number of trolls and giants crawling around.

[Bloax]

Tip: If you're about XL11, stone giants usually mean one thing:
DEATH IS NEAR

[hxy]

That bailey you described has secret doors that allow you to get the loot.

[Moose]

Didn't the devs get rid of secret doors? Or did they keep them around for special situations like this?

[Southpaw]

IIRC special vaults still can have secret doors, they just don't "naturally" appear

[nicolae]

That was the case briefly (maybe in 0.11?) but in trunk secret doors are completely gone, thank god.

I think in 0.11 secret doors still exist but only in vaults, in 0.12 they're gone forever.

[Lasty]

@OP, it sounds like you're doing a lot of fleeing into unexplored territory while low on health. That's usually a good way to get killed. It probably would have been worth reading a scroll of teleportation or using some other escape consumable when trying to escape from the stone giant initially.

[SchwaWarrior]

Good run! Shame that it ended that way though. Least you gave it your hardest try. It's true though, running away into unexplored territory (as opposed to explored territory) is a very bad habit unless you have absolutely no possible way to simply backtrack.

Soon as I saw the Stone Giant, if it was too close to run from without getting hit with boulders on the way out, I'd have Steambreath'd him and then hoped it'd block him from being able to see and target me as I ran the fuck back where I came from. I also hate using the teleport scrolls at all unless I am going to DIE if I don't, because teleport is a big gamble if you haven't killed practically every monster on the floor and ESPECIALLY if you still haven't explored the whole place. You'd have to cross your fingers you don't land somewhere even worse than where you were, such as with the Orc High Priests in your case. One enemy I often end up having to teleport away from is Aizul, who's twice as fast as me (so, can't be run away from) and has Venom Arrow which frequently takes off half my HP in one hit.

You could have also headed straight for the Lair first by skipping Erolcha's floor and exploring the rest of that floor later. Either way, the Orc Mines are exceptionally, deceptively dangerous, and a low level character MIGHT be able to clean out the first floor or two if he's lucky, well-prepared, and gets a good layout, but usually you'd want to wait until you can tango with roving hordes of ogres and giants almost like what you'd find in the dreaded Vaults, and not be afraid of dying in the process, before you attempt Orc:4. Don't even expect to be able to stairdance or hide behind anything, the Orc Mines are a gladiator arena with NOTHING to hide behind, so whatever is down there, make sure you can kill it the moment you meet it BEFORE you venture inside, or don't even try. These threats also include your good friends Nessos, Nikola, Erica, Saint Roka (rarely, but I've seen him in Orc:4 so be ready just in case), Maurice, Sonja, and I THINK even Kirlie may show up there. Nessos and Nikola in particular can possibly kill you in one hit the moment they see you before the game even allows you to react. That's why I like to wait until I'm roughly XL 15 before taking on the entire Orc Mines, which I usually am close to once clearing the Lair.

Anyway, congrats on your highest score yet! If you enjoyed playing a Draconian Monk then keep at it, hopefully your games will get better and better and you'll finally get a victory one day. It took me over a year and over 200 games, before I won once, but I did it, so you can too. Never Give Up.

[libelnon]

Thanks for the helpful words, guys.

I'm becoming a bit of a fan of the Tengu since, as well. Must be something about races with decent innate weapons, such as the Tengu's talons or the Draconian's tail. I'm also getting pretty far with merfolk characters, although I just don't enjoy them quite so much.

Still not managed to beat my DrMk, so I'm just plugging away. Watch this space though, one of my MfSk or TeCo characters may well come close in the near future!

[cganya]

Yes ork mines can be very bad, always be ready to run back to the stairs and to take a few hits going up them. some things are just unavoidable sometimes (shafts are fairly common ways to lose a good character in ork mines)

One time I went down to floor 4 and the staircase was surrounded by a large rectangular room completely filled with trolls (up to iron) and giants (up to frost giants, so multiple stone giants). There must have been 40 of them. All I could think was this: 1: That's a lot of xp and 2: I can't handle this right now *runs away*

I did go back later though and I was right, it was a lot of xp

I have a bit of criticism though: You started with the monk background then switched over to long blades? did you pick monk for the piety or the dodging or something? It looked like you were eager to pick-up a spell book as well, there's nothing wrong with that but wouldn't a hybrid background like skald or transmuter work better for that? From what I have learned, specialization is key to survival and having a bunch of levels in UC would be wasted if you just go over to a weapon skill when you find a decent weapon. (assuming you know that secondary attacks don't get strengthened by UC any-more)

[some12fat2move]

I have a bit of criticism though: You started with the monk background then switched over to long blades? did you pick monk for the piety or the dodging or something? It looked like you were eager to pick-up a spell book as well, there's nothing wrong with that but wouldn't a hybrid background like skald or transmuter work better for that? From what I have learned, specialization is key to survival and having a bunch of levels in UC would be wasted if you just go over to a weapon skill when you find a decent weapon. (assuming you know that secondary attacks don't get strengthened by UC any-more)

4 levels is not "a bunch of levels". The reason to pick Monk is piety and DEX, and it's a great background for Draconians since they don't need STR for heavy armour (can't wear any).

[crate]

If you're not going to use UC you will almost always do better by not picking monk (pick gladiator instead). In general monk is a pretty weak background imo (except with trolls/ghouls, where it's ok, though the stats are kind of awful for ghouls and mediocre for trolls) because you don't get very good starting equipment so you have a hard time even surviving to a god compared to other classes, unless you get lucky and get a pre d:4 altar.

But if you have fun playing monk then go ahead and play it of course.

[palin]

I see the problem here, you pick your background and you get both skills and stats. Sometimes the stats you wished to have differs from the skills a background give you...

[libelnon]

(assuming you know that secondary attacks don't get strengthened by UC any-more)

Nope, didn't know that. That will certainly make my playthroughs as a TeGl much smoother.

When'd they change that?

[cganya]

(assuming you know that secondary attacks don't get strengthened by UC any-more)

Nope, didn't know that. That will certainly make my playthroughs as a TeGl much smoother.

When'd they change that?

I'm not sure when it was changed, the information I have is from the auxiliary attack page on the wiki. Looking at the auxiliary attack entry on the knowledge bot... it looks outdated (how ironic) but it does say that you need at least one level (less maybe? maybe you only need 0.1) to get an extra attack with an unused hand. It would seem that extra attacks are mostly reliant on equipment, mutations and spells.

[crate]

You still get an offhand punch if you have an unused hand and UC skill. However you are basically always better served by making that unused hand into a used hand--either get a bigger weapon, or equip a shield--instead of getting damage from the offhand punch. The only exception is that some UC characters would rather not wear a shield, but then you're already training UC anyway.

Mutation-based aux attacks (which is every aux attack except your offhand punch) depend only on having the mutation and I think on your stats.

[cganya]

You still get an offhand punch if you have an unused hand and UC skill. However you are basically always better served by making that unused hand into a used hand--either get a bigger weapon, or equip a shield--instead of getting damage from the offhand punch. The only exception is that some UC characters would rather not wear a shield, but then you're already training UC anyway.

Mutation-based aux attacks (which is every aux attack except your offhand punch) depend only on having the mutation and I think on your stats.

you get a head-butt attack while wearing a helmet.

but yes I definitely agree with you. carry the black torch, if only to rouse your idle offhand.

[BlackSheep]

Helmets do not grant a headbutt aux attack. Hard helmets add 2 damage to a headbutt and spiked/horned helmets add 3, but you need a horns or beak mutation to get headbutts, so you can't get get those bonuses anymore.