CIP: DsTm^ ????

Monday, 10th February 2014, 20:01 by Siegurt

I'm at the temple:

Code:: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.14-a0-2544-ge03b0eb (console) character file. Seigurt the Skirmisher (Demonspawn Transmuter) Turns: 6384, Time: 00:48:23 HP 62/62 AC 8 Str 10 XL: 8 Next: 0% MP 16/16 EV 14 Int 17 God: Gold 118 SH 0 Dex 13 Spells: 5 memorised, 1 level left rFire . . . SeeInvis . - Unarmed rCold . . . Clarity . g - +2 robe rNeg . . . Conserve . (no shield) rPois . rCorr . (no helmet) rElec . rRot . (no cloak) SustAb . . Spirit . (no gloves) rMut . Warding . (boots unavailable) Saprov . . . Stasis . (no amulet) MR ..... (no ring) (no ring) @: not resistant to hostile enchantments, very unstealthy A: talons 3, rough black scales 1 a: no special abilities You are in the Ecumenical Temple. You are not hungry. You have visited 2 branches of the dungeon, and seen 7 of its levels. You have collected 176 gold pieces. You have spent 58 gold pieces at shops. Inventory: Hand weapons b - an uncursed sling Missiles k - 27 poisoned needles n - 69 darts (quivered) s - 4 silver darts t - 11 stones w - 33 arrows A - 16 poisoned arrows Armour g - a +2 robe (worn) l - a +0 helmet Magical devices e - a wand of magic darts {zapped: 1} o - a wand of slowing {zapped: 7} r - a forked iron wand y - a wand of digging {zapped: 1} Comestibles a - 5 bread rations q - a meat ration C - a rotting chunk of giant cockroach flesh Scrolls j - 4 scrolls of remove curse u - 2 scrolls of fear F - a scroll of amnesia Jewellery p - an uncursed dented bronze amulet {tried} Potions c - a potion of invisibility f - 3 potions of might h - a potion of brilliance m - a potion of magic x - a metallic orange potion z - a gluggy red potion D - 2 potions of curing Books d - a book of Changes Spells Type Level *Beastly Appendage Transmutation 1 *Sticks to Snakes Transmutation 2 *Spider Form Transmutation/Poison 3 *Ice Form Ice/Transmutation 4 Blade Hands Transmutation 5 v - a book of Geomancy Spells Type Level Sandblast Earth 1 *Stoneskin Transmutation/Earth 2 Passwall Transmutation/Earth 3 Stone Arrow Conjuration/Earth 3 Petrify Transmutation/Earth 4 Lee's Rapid Deconstruction Earth 5 Skills: - Level 5.1 Fighting - Level 4.1 Dodging - Level 4.8 Unarmed Combat - Level 3.3 Spellcasting + Level 3.0 Transmutations - Level 2.0 Poison Magic You have one spell level left. You know the following spells: Your Spells Type Power Failure Level Hunger a - Beastly Appendage Trmt ##.... 6% 1 None i - Ice Form Ice/Trmt #......... 89% 4 ####... s - Spider Form Trmt/Pois ##........ 21% 3 ###.... K - Stoneskin Trmt/Erth #......... 17% 2 ##..... S - Sticks to Snakes Trmt ##........ 10% 2 ##..... Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations Branches: Dungeon (6/16) Temple (1/1) D:6 Altars: Ashenzari Cheibriados Dithmengos Elyvilon Fedhas Kikubaaqudgha Makhleb Nemelex Xobeh Okawaru Sif Muna Vehumet Xom Yredelemnul Zin The Shining One Shops: D:5 [=:*/ Portals: Ossuary: D:6 Annotations: D:4 Menkaure Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations You have claws for feet.* You are partially covered in rough black scales (AC +4, Dex -1).* Message History Describe a (M)onster, (S)pell, s(K)ill, (I)tem, (F)eature, (G)od, (A)bility, (B)ranch, or (C)ard? Describe a (M)onster, (S)pell, s(K)ill, (I)tem, (F)eature, (G)od, (A)bility, (B)ranch, or (C)ard? Okay, then. Search for what [Enter for "altar", or ? for help]? Save game and exit? Welcome back, Seigurt the Demonspawn Transmuter. Press ? for a list of commands and other information. Cast which spell? (? or * to list) Okay, then. Save game and exit? Okay, then. Unknown command. Search for what [? for help]? Okay, then. Search for what [? for help]? altar Search for what [Enter for "altar", or ? for help]? body Okay, then. Search for what [Enter for "body", or ? for help]? blink Unknown command. Save game and exit? ????????????????????????? ????????????????????????? ????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????? ???????????????????@?????? ?????????????????????????? ????????????????????????? ?????????? ????????????? ?????? ????????????? ? ????? ??????????##? ? ????????????#? ? ?????<????? #? ? ??????????? ? ??????????? ? ?????????? ? ????? There are no monsters in sight! Vanquished Creatures A centaur (D:5) An ogre (D:5) 2 giant frogs 3 hounds 3 crimson imps 3 orc wizards A worker ant (D:4) An ogre skeleton (D:5) 6 gnolls 10 adders A giant mite (D:2) 2 worms 3 giant geckos (D:1) 3 oozes 5 orcs 4 ball pythons 8 bats 5 giant cockroaches 8 goblins 11 hobgoblins 9 jackals 12 kobolds 4 quokkas 4 giant newts A hobgoblin skeleton (D:4) A kobold skeleton (D:4) 12 rats A rat skeleton (D:5) A plant (D:4) 126 creatures vanquished. Vanquished Creatures (collateral kills) An ice beast (D:5) Blork the orc (D:5) 2 gnolls (D:5) 4 creatures vanquished. Grand Total: 130 creatures vanquished Notes Turn | Place | Note -------------------------------------------------------------- 0 | D:1 | Seigurt, the Demonspawn Transmuter, began the quest for the Orb. 0 | D:1 | Reached XP level 1. HP: 15/15 MP: 3/3 369 | D:1 | Reached XP level 2. HP: 20/22 MP: 2/4 955 | D:1 | Learned a level 2 spell: Sticks to Snakes 1111 | D:1 | Reached skill level 3 in Fighting 1135 | D:1 | Gained mutation: You have razor-sharp toenails. [demonic ancestry] 1135 | D:1 | Reached XP level 3. HP: 26/29 MP: 4/6 1372 | D:1 | Learned a level 3 spell: Spider Form 1669 | D:2 | Found a shimmering altar of Xom. 1669 | D:2 | Found a shimmering altar of Xom. 1763 | D:2 | Found a shimmering altar of Xom. 1795 | D:2 | Reached skill level 1 in Poison Magic 1795 | D:2 | Gained mutation: You are partially covered in rough black scales (AC +4, Dex -1). [demonic ancestry] 1795 | D:2 | Reached XP level 4. HP: 33/35 MP: 5/7 2941 | D:3 | Reached XP level 5. HP: 32/41 MP: 5/9 3517 | D:3 | Reached skill level 4 in Unarmed Combat 3668 | D:4 | Learned a level 2 spell: Stoneskin 3800 | D:4 | Reached XP level 6. HP: 37/47 MP: 3/10 4168 | D:4 | Found a snail-covered altar of Cheibriados. 4373 | D:4 | Noticed Menkaure 4408 | D:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Dungeon 4432 | D:5 | Found Fympod's Jewellery Boutique. 4524 | D:5 | Reached skill level 5 in Fighting 4584 | D:5 | Reached XP level 7. HP: 37/56 MP: 12/12 4880 | D:5 | Found Kima's Book Emporium. 4890 | D:5 | Found Waohuf's Assorted Antiques. 5149 | D:5 | Bought a scroll labeled BIFEOR YTALL for 29 gold pieces 5149 | D:5 | Bought a scroll labeled KHALOLA GAKE for 29 gold pieces 5207 | D:5 | Found Istru Pro's Armour Shop. 5481 | D:5 | Noticed Blork the orc 5496 | D:5 | Killed Blork the orc 5532 | D:5 | Found Tiac's Magical Wand Boutique. 5637 | D:5 | Learned a level 4 spell: Ice Form 5793 | D:5 | Found a deep blue altar of Sif Muna. 6047 | D:6 | Found a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple. 6055 | D:6 | Gained mutation: You have claws for feet. [demonic ancestry] 6055 | D:6 | Reached XP level 8. HP: 62/62 MP: 14/16 6065 | D:6 | Found a sand-covered staircase. 6163 | Temple | Entered the Ecumenical Temple 6384 | Temple | Upgraded the game from 0.14-a0-2516-g151ae2e to 0.14-a0-2544-ge03b0eb Action | 1- 3 | 4- 6 | 7- 9 || total -------------------------+-------+-------+-------++------- Melee: Unarmed | 128 | 327 | 78 || 533 Throw: Dart | 8 | 20 | 10 || 38 Cast: Beastly Appendage | 23 | 40 | 14 || 77 Spider Form | | 6 | 8 || 14 Stoneskin | | 1 | || 1 Sticks to Snakes | | | 8 || 8 Abil: End Transformatio | | | 1 || 1 Evoke: Wand | | 2 | 1 || 3 Use: Scroll | | 17 | 3 || 20 Potion | | | 1 || 1 Table legend: A = Turns spent in this place as a percentage of turns spent in the entire game. B = Non-inter-level travel turns spent in this place as a percentage of non-inter-level travel turns spent in the entire game. C = Inter-level travel turns spent in this place as a percentage of turns spent in this place. D = Turns resting spent in this place as a percentage of non-inter-level travel turns spent in this place. E = Turns spent auto-exploring this place as a percentage of non-inter-level travel turns spent in this place. F = Non-inter-level travel turns spent in this place divided by the number of levels of this place that you've seen. A B C D E F +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------------------- Total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 0.4 | 2.4 | 1.2 | 519.0 Dungeon | 98.5 | 98.5 | 0.4 | 2.4 | 0.8 | 596.7 Temple | 1.5 | 1.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 24.5 | 53.0 +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------------------- Table legend: A = Kills in this place as a percentage of kills in entire the game. B = Kills by you in this place as a percentage of kills by you in the entire game. C = Kills by friends in this place as a percentage of kills by friends in the entire game. D = Other kills in this place as a percentage of other kills in the entire game. E = Experience gained in this place as a percentage of experience gained in the entire game. F = Experience gained in this place divided by the number of levels of this place that you have seen. A B C D E F +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------------------- Total | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | -nan | 100.0 | 205.3 Dungeon | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | -nan | 100.0 | 239.5 +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+----------------------

And I'm debating what god to choose, I haven't found any particularly good weapons, so sticking with standard transmuter unarmed combat seems to be the way to go. There's a +0 IDA on D:3 that I'll probably use, when I get some fire resistance and sufficient skill to overcome the body armour penalty. Other than the IDA I also found an earth book, which is nice, because it lets me get extra use out of my transmutations skill (for stoneskin, passwall and petrify) and gives me some additional outlets for ranged damage (Stone arrow and LRD) later.

I feel like Oka would give me a near-immediate benefit, as DsTm using UC have such a tough training regimen until they get blade hands online, and Heroism lets me sink points less points into UC/Dodge giving me the breathing room to focus on spellcasting. However Oka doesn't give any panic buttons, just better mashing power.
Makhelb is tempting, he's always a good god, but of course Makky spreads my exp spending out *more* rather than less, and Makky with no invocations is just kinda silly.
I'm also considering Yred (Who I feel like is nice, but doesn't help me *now* I have S2S for summonfodder, and Yred gifts and ES are quite far off) and again he does nothing for my training dispersal.
Sif is an option (Reduced miscasts would let me not invest quite so much into spellcasting skills) but if I'm not investing into spellcasting skills as much, piety will be *very* slow coming. I always feel like Sif is really really slow to get benefits from.
Ash might be an option too, but of course with UC it's that much harder to become bound in any meaningful way.
I suppose DSTm get more Benefit from Chei than anyone, but I don't play Chei when I want to win, only when I want to relax and have silly fun.
Dith would be an option, but he's restricted from the challenge I'm engaged in.
Fedhas might also be an option, but I feel like his abilities don't mesh as well with UC as they do with say, ranged, or polearms, or short blades,

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 06:45 by and into

Since this is a competitive game, I'd say Okawaru, Nemelex, Makhleb, or Fedhas (not necessarily in that order) would be my top choices for increasing likelihood of winning. Ash or Kiku would still be solid choices, of course.

You already have a great offensive *and* escape option rolled into one, at least for the early going: spider form. Get that reliable, then get some dodging, then get a bit of invocations or for Nem evocations, if necessary. Don't branch out into too much earth stuff early on, spider form should be your priority. Get it to around 14% spell failure or something as top priority, I wouldn't have trained as much spell casting nor as much dodging as you have, but it is probably fine if you prioritize spider form now.

As for gods: I'd avoid Sif or Vehumet on this character. Not as bad, but I'd be disinclined to take Yred, as well, unless I had stumbled upon an early (pre-Temple) altar to him. His undead perma-ally gifts can be strong, but unless I start off worshiping him or luck into early altar, it always feels like it takes too long to get them, and until that point I feel other gods have better early offerings. Pain mirror is good but requires some invo. and is extremely piety-hungry, thus delaying your undead servants.

Demonspawn have +3 invocations aptitude and Makhleb's lesser servant needs about 5 or 6 skill levels, which doesn't spread your experience out that much. Getting enough invo. for greater servant may have to wait a little bit though, yeah.

EDIT: You should be worrying mostly about early game, but do note that branching out into earth and using stone skin + IDA + your rough black scales mutation should give excellent defenses in middle game.

Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 09:04 by nago

For now I'd just train UC, which is painfully low, because 21% on spider form is enough to easily carry you to mid Dungeon. You'll need ice form in lair, but training for it can wait.

Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 09:16 by Sar

Fedhas is fantastic at letting harder builds survive the early game (and DsTm is definitely one of those builds), and later you can have oklob turrets on demand, which is great too.

Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 18:12 by Siegurt

Well, I died.

Here's where my skills and spells ended up:

Code:: Skills: - Level 5.1(10.1) Fighting - Level 4.1(9.1) Dodging - Level 4.8(9.8) Unarmed Combat - Level 3.3 Spellcasting + Level 6.4 Transmutations + Level 4.1 Ice Magic - Level 2.0 Poison Magic You had 2 spell levels left. You knew the following spells: Your Spells Type Power Failure Level Hunger a - Beastly Appendage Trmt ###... 1% 1 None i - Ice Form Ice/Trmt ###....... 21% 4 ####... s - Spider Form Trmt/Pois ###....... 10% 3 ###.... K - Stoneskin Trmt/Erth ##........ 10% 2 ##..... S - Sticks to Snakes Trmt ###....... 1% 2 ##.....

I had chosen Oka and was just able to invoke heroism, so things were looking good, but I acted stupidly and underestimated the amount of damage I was taking from a ghost..

Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 18:31 by Sandman25

Fighting was higher than UC. Is it related to recent changes to Fighting? (I still don't understand if early Fighting is good now).

Tuesday, 11th February 2014, 18:44 by Siegurt

It's better than it was, now early fighting gives you some kind of bump in max hps, which does help with early survivability.

Also while a minor consideration, with this specific build, Aux attacks get decent bonuses from fighting, so my extra talon/horns attacks were doing more damage as a result of having extra fighting, which wasn't the overriding concern for training it, but was a consideration making it less unappealing.

I nearly always train about 5 fighting sometime in the early game, my UC training stopped when I wanted to focus on getting Spider form reliable (And it was less of a consideration since I had the heroism boost from Oka) It wasn't that I was specifically training Fighting more than UC, it was more that I just hadn't gotten back to UC after training transmutations yet at this particular snapshot.

Friday, 14th February 2014, 19:41 by Lasty

I'm a big proponent of not training magic on a Tm until you have about 10 UC, since most characters can cast spider form after a few tries with starting skills, and that's good enough. Having the extra UC skill makes a huge difference in what you can afford to take on.

Of course, having Okawaru makes that less pressing, but still.

Friday, 14th February 2014, 19:45 by Sandman25

Lasty wrote:I'm a big proponent of not training magic on a Tm until you have about 10 UC, since most characters can cast spider form after a few tries with starting skills, and that's good enough.

Spider Form is red at 60% for DsTm with starting skills as far as I remember. Do you still cast it? Maybe I should try too, but red miscast really scares me.

Friday, 14th February 2014, 20:18 by Lasty

I can't recall offhand what the percentage has been when I've played transmuters, but It's entirely possible that I was on a species with better apts/int. In any case, when your spell power is very, very low and the spell school is low, you can't get very severe miscasts even when the miscast chance is fairly high, so you'll mostly get grey contam and flavor messages.

Friday, 14th February 2014, 22:10 by Siegurt

Funnily enough I find that the other way around is at least as if not more effective. Spider form is super effective even at the starting UC skill, getting it reliable (For TM spells I want <20%, preferably <15%) is what I typically do first nowadays.

Once I've got it reliable, then I swap to defenses, *then* UC, I've gone both ways though and they both seem to work. I feel like having SF up and running first is actually safer than just training UC, since SF is both offense *and* escape.

Saturday, 15th February 2014, 22:16 by and into

Siegurt wrote:Funnily enough I find that the other way around is at least as if not more effective. Spider form is super effective even at the starting UC skill, getting it reliable (For TM spells I want <20%, preferably <15%) is what I typically do first nowadays.

Once I've got it reliable, then I swap to defenses, *then* UC, I've gone both ways though and they both seem to work. I feel like having SF up and running first is actually safer than just training UC, since SF is both offense *and* escape.

This is more or less exactly my preferred strategy with Tm as well. Sticks to snakes is great too, of course, and with starting skill levels you don't need to train any spell casting as you have just enough spell slots for appendage, SF, and sticks to snakes by level 3. So I train UC until I reach char level 3, then switch to getting SF reliable asap. Then UC and dodging. That has served me well in general.

CIP: DsTm^ ????

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