Young Player: Advice?

[corvett]

I was using a TeCo. I don't know what the normal spell-memorization order is for this class, nor do I know the normal ways of divying up skill points or adding to Strength, Intelligence, or Dexterity. I don't always know when to take risks for ID'ing unknown items, and am especially cautious with the potions. Here's the log:

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.14-b1-56-g2fe3ec4 (webtiles) character file.

413 corvett the Conjurer (level 6, -1/32 HPs)
             Began as a Tengu Conjurer on Apr 2, 2014.
             Slain by a worker ant (4 damage)
             ... on Level 4 of the Dungeon.
             The game lasted 00:41:14 (4049 turns).

corvett the Conjurer (Tengu Conjurer)               Turns: 4049, Time: 00:41:14

HP  -1/32        AC  7     Str  8      XL: 6   Next: 27%
MP   0/12        EV 12     Int 17      God:
Gold 133         SH  0     Dex 15      Spells:  2 memorised,  4 levels left

rFire  . . .     SeeInvis .     e - +0,+1 flail (protect)
rCold  . . .     Clarity  .     r - +0 robe
rNeg   . . .     Conserve .     (no shield)
rPois  .         rCorr    .     (helmet restricted)
rElec  .         rSlow    .     (no cloak)
SustAb . .       Spirit   .     (no gloves)
rMut   +         Warding  .     (boots unavailable)
Saprov . . .     Stasis   .     s - amulet of resist mutation
MR     .....                    (no ring)
                                (no ring)

@: very slightly contaminated, heavily drained, not resistant to hostile
enchantments, fairly stealthy
A: able to fly, beak, talons 3
a: Fly


You were on level 4 of the Dungeon.
You were not hungry.

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

You collected 133 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 e - a +0,+1 flail of protection (weapon)
 l - a +0,+0 war axe
 x - a -2,-2 hand axe
Missiles
 t - 17 stones (quivered)
Armour
 a - a +0 robe
 g - a +0 pair of gloves
 k - a cursed +0 robe
 m - a +1 cloak
 r - a +0 robe (worn)
 u - a +2 shield
Magical devices
 n - a wand of enslavement (14) {unknown}
Comestibles
 b - 3 bread rations
 v - 2 rotting chunks of orc flesh
 w - a banana
 A - 2 chunks of goblin flesh
Scrolls
 d - a scroll of enchant weapon I {unknown}
 f - 2 scrolls of random uselessness {unknown}
 o - a scroll of recharging {unknown}
 q - 2 scrolls of noise {unknown}
Jewellery
 s - an amulet of resist mutation (around neck)
Potions
 h - 2 potions of curing
 i - a potion of might
 j - a potion of invisibility {unknown}
 p - a potion of heal wounds {unknown}
 z - 2 potions of brilliance {unknown}
 B - a potion of degeneration {unknown}
Books
 c - a book of Conjurations   
   
   Spells                             Type                      Level
   *Magic Dart                        Conjuration                  1
   Searing Ray                        Conjuration                  2
   Dazzling Spray                     Conjuration/Hexes            3
   Fulminant Prism                    Conjuration/Hexes            4
   *Iskenderun's Mystic Blast         Conjuration                  4
   Iskenderun's Battlesphere          Conjuration/Charms           5


   Skills:
 + Level 2.5(1.2) Maces & Flails
 - Level 2.7(1.4) Dodging
 - Level 2.8(1.5) Stealth
 - Level 2.0(0.8) Spellcasting
 * Level 8.4(6.9) Conjurations


You had 4 spell levels left.
You knew the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Magic Dart            Conj           ###.         1%          1    ##.....
b - Iskenderun's Mystic   Conj           ###.....     14%         4    #####..


Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (4/15)             Temple (0/1) D:4         

Altars:


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You can fly.
You have a beak for a mouth.
You have claws for feet.


Message History

Aiming: Magic Dart
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - worker ant
Aim: a worker ant (severely wounded)
The magic dart hits the worker ant.
The worker ant is severely wounded.
The worker ant bites you.
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The worker ant bites you but does no damage.
A quokka comes into view.
You barely miss the worker ant.
The worker ant is severely wounded.
The worker ant bites you.
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
Casting: Magic Dart
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
You don't have enough magic to cast that spell.
You closely miss the worker ant.
The worker ant is severely wounded.
The worker ant bites you.
You die...

              #.##
              ...#
              #..#.
              #[.#.#
        #######..#.#   ##########
        #........#.### #.(....)..
     ####........#...###....).%..
     ............................
    ...........a@..#.###.........
     ######..####%.#.###.........
       #..#..+  #..#...%.........
       #..#..#  #..#.............
###    ##'#..####r.#.............
...#+###.....).....#.............
..............)......#####...#.##
...........##'#'##.###   #...#>..
P####P.#####..#..#.#     #####.##


You could see a worker ant and a quokka.

Vanquished Creatures
  2 orc wizards
  A worker ant (D:4)
  Jessica (D:2)
  The ghost of Yermak the Ducker, a weakling SpPa of the Shining One (D:3)
  7 adders
  2 worms
  2 giant geckos
  21 orcs
  5 giant cockroaches
  5 hobgoblins
  12 bats
  2 giant newts
  7 goblins
  11 kobolds
  2 quokkas
  8 rats
89 creatures vanquished.

Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1      | corvett, the Tengu Conjurer, began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1      | Reached XP level 1. HP: 10/10 MP: 3/3
   314 | D:1      | Reached XP level 2. HP: 15/15 MP: 3/5
   823 | D:1      | Reached skill level 6 in Conjurations
   917 | D:2      | Reached XP level 3. HP: 19/19 MP: 1/7
  1503 | D:2      | Noticed Jessica
  1544 | D:2      | Killed Jessica
  1544 | D:2      | Reached XP level 4. HP: 15/24 MP: 1/8
  1980 | D:3      | Learned a level 4 spell: Iskenderun's Mystic Blast
  1984 | D:3      | Reached skill level 7 in Conjurations
  2138 | D:3      | Noticed Yermak's ghost (weakling SpPa)
  2140 | D:3      | Killed Yermak's ghost
  2367 | D:3      | Reached XP level 5. HP: 28/28 MP: 5/11
  2410 | D:3      | Reached skill level 1 in Maces & Flails
  3287 | D:4      | Found a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple.
  3437 | D:4      | Reached skill level 8 in Conjurations
  3437 | D:4      | Reached XP level 6. HP: 32/32 MP: 6/12
  4049 | D:4      | Slain by a worker ant


Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------++-------
Melee: Unarmed           |     4 |       ||     4
       War axe           |     1 |       ||     1
       Flail             |       |    28 ||    28
 Cast: Magic Dart        |    72 |    95 ||   167
       Iskenderun's Myst |       |    11 ||    11
  Use: Scroll            |     2 |     3 ||     5
       Potion            |       |     3 ||     3



Any advice is appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[EvilAshe]

Going straight to Mystic Blast is a little much, you skipped some weaker spells with lower spell failure and MP cost attached. I usually go Searing Ray - Mystic Blast - Battlesphere. I'm pretty sure Searing Ray would have killed that damn Worker Ant (though read the spell description, it works kind of weird)

As for skill training, you were splitting your XP with a weapon skill, as a conjurer you have the ability to blast down everything with spells, funnel everything into Conjurations until your spells are at least single digit failure (or better yet, at 1%). I don't even put any into charms for Battlesphere as a tengu with their +3 Conjurations, -2Charms.
Once your spells are up and running look to your defences (Fighting for HP and Dodging for.... well dodging). You're in no rush to pick up any weapon skill. In your game you hit things 33 times, you cast a spell 178.

Always boost Intelligence.

The awkward thing about Tengu can be to remember to use their flight (until it becomes permanent at XL15), but their my favourite race in the game

[Kismet]

I get strength if I am hitting the carry limit a lot, otherwise if I'm casting lots of spells to kill stuff I level int. I pick up the spells in the conjuration spell book in the order they appear, except that I take battlesphere before mystic blast.

I usually autoskill but turn off spellcasting after it hits 4... Also I turn stealth off and never turn it on again. When the spells I want to cast are doing ok I turn their schools off and turn spellcasting back on until it hits 8. This is a situational call and it depends if I am getting annoyed by hunger/I have other spells I want to learn. Once fighting and dodging are around 10 each, I turn spellcasting back on until it hits 12, and I never turn it on again. I turn off stuff like weapons skill/shields/invocations/evocations situationally, but I have to spoil myself because I can't intuit where the breakpoints are on that stuff.

I think you typically get early multiples of cure/hw. That could totally be an illusion though. I avoid quaff/read ID'ing for the first few levels unless I feel like I have no good options or I am just bored. I want to say that you will also get early multiples of remove curse/identify, but I could be wrong about that too! Anyways, I try to read ID from really big stacks of scrolls onto big stacks of potions until I ID ID. Then I ID pots until I have curing or heal wounds. Then I ID scrolls until I have blink/tele. Then... it's random. I personally don't care about smudging a character that quaffs bad mut early, but others disagree.

There are no risks for zap ID'ing wands except burning a charge of something useful that you can't use to save your life later on... or you zap fireball against an adjacent object. I would not be identifying jewellery at this stage of the game, potions and scrolls typically do more to keep me alive.

My advice would be to: kill stuff before it gets close to you... and until you pick up a nice melee weapon, if you can't kill a monster by the time it is 2 squares away and it isn't a pushover, then run away! There are exceptions to this rule... Stuff that can kill you just by being in sight of you, or having a clear LOS to you. You will learn this by practice.
Practice running away a lot, it really is OP. It is 100% ok to leave something or multiple things on a floor unkilled.
Once you get a nice melee weapon, use it a lot!
Wear your cloak/gloves/hats/boots, they don't affect spell success.
Pick up blowguns and needles, and use them a lot! If you're playing a melee character, pick up ranged weapons/javelins/tomahawks/branded darts and use them on everything!
Use your wands! Use your consumables!
You can cast fine in leather/ringmail.

[Pisano]

Any character can pick up thrown weapons to use on easy monsters and for casters you can save MP for more dangerous threats. Even with 0 skill you can kill stuff on the first few levels with darts and stones. Later on this won't be worth the inventory slots or hassle, but a pile of darts on level 1 is pretty good. Over time you'll learn what monsters are really dangerous, e.g. adders are dangerous at low levels because they are faster than you and can poison you.

[tedric]

I get strength if I am hitting the carry limit a lot, otherwise if I'm casting lots of spells to kill stuff I level int. I pick up the spells in the conjuration spell book in the order they appear, except that I take battlesphere before mystic blast.

Ditto. But don't let worries about the carry limit cause you to raise strength much on a caster. Between 8 and 10 is enough to carry what you need -- you should be stashing the rest of your stuff anyway. More Int will be much more useful to you.

Kismet's ID method is not bad. The more common potions/scrolls do sometimes spawn in multiples of 2 or 3, but quaff-ID is always dangerous -- that stack of 4 or 5 potions will sometimes be poison, or confusion. I believe that rare potions, both good and bad (experience, decay, etc.), always spawn as singles and never on the first couple floors of the dungeon. I typically read-ID all scrolls and save scrolls of Identify for potions and jewelry until I have identified everything I've found so far and have a surplus -- by that point I'm likely to start running across the rarer scrolls and want to ID without wasting them. Most rings are safe to wear-ID, but I wouldn't do it until you know you have Remove Curse scrolls because a cursed ring of hunger or teleportation can kill an early character.

There was a very interesting thread recently about the different perspectives on what to use ID scrolls on: https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11414

My advice would be to: kill stuff before it gets close to you... and until you pick up a nice melee weapon, if you can't kill a monster by the time it is 2 squares away and it isn't a pushover, then run away! There are exceptions to this rule... Stuff that can kill you just by being in sight of you, or having a clear LOS to you. You will learn this by practice.
Practice running away a lot, it really is OP.
Once you get a nice melee weapon, use it a lot!
Wear your cloak/gloves/hats/boots, they don't affect spell success.
Pick up blowguns and needles, and use them a lot! If you're playing a melee character, pick up ranged weapons/javelins/tomahawks/branded darts and use them on everything!
Use your wands! Use your consumables!
You can cast fine in leather/ringmail.

I agree with all of this except that you can't always cast "fine" in ringmail. You will definitely notice that you need extra investment in spell schools to get some spells reliable. (Spell schools are the most important factor in spell success; spellcasting and armour skills both apply too with a lesser effect, and you may want to train them anyway for other reasons.)

I'll add that possibly the most fundamental skill to learn in this game is how to position your character when enemies are in sight. You generally want to fight one enemy at a time. As soon as you have someone's attention, back up into territory you've explored and find a corridor where you won't be ganged up on. This also helps to prevent other enemies from following, so you have time to rest between encounters. Always rest up between encounters.

A caster can usually put off training weapon skills entirely for quite a while. Let your spells do the heavy lifting. Searing Ray and Dazzling Spray will kill most things in early Dungeon. Only use melee on enemies that are near death or low-level "popcorn" that can't really hurt you. Once most of the spells in your starting book are online, you can start to think about which weapon skill to train -- and by then you'll have more options to potentially make a more informed choice.

One thing I really wish had been more clear to me early on is that (despite the lack of sound effects) pretty much everything does make some kind of noise in-game. When a monster shouts, it's not just flavor text -- it really does wake up/alert nearby enemies. Same thing for spells like Mystic Blast, which makes a fairly loud noise when it explodes. Heavier weapons make more noise in melee. Fighting near a corner into unexplored territory can draw enemies that are not in your line of sight. Be mindful of this.

General Philosophy: Expect to die a lot. Trust that the game is fair and winnable, even when it doesn't feel like it. Accept that each death (after D:3 or so, anyway) is fundamentally your own damn fault, and treat it as a learning experience.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

I don't know what the normal spell-memorization order is for this class

It's largely preference. Every spell in the Conjurer book is very good. Naturally Tengu aptitudes make the 3 pure conjurations a lot more appealing, and sticking to those in the early game is a good plan (and Mystic Blast alone can clear damn near the entire game if you really set your mind to it).

[Patashu]

Kismet's ID method is not bad. The more common potions/scrolls do sometimes spawn in multiples of 2 or 3, but quaff-ID is always dangerous -- that stack of 4 or 5 potions will sometimes be poison, or confusion. I believe that rare potions, both good and bad (experience, decay, etc.), always spawn as singles and never on the first couple floors of the dungeon.

Kind of.
Abra kadabra, become spoiled:
viewtopic.php?p=149571#p149571

normally generated potions are 23.3% curing, 11.5% heal wounds, 6.5% restore abilities, 5.3% poison, 5.3% might, 5.3% agility, 5.3% brilliance, 5% speed, 2.8% invisibility, 2.8% flight, 2.8% resistance, 2.8% magic, 2.8% berserk rage, 2.65% mutation, 2.65% lignification (slowing), 2.65% paralysis, 2.65% confusion, 2.3% degeneration, 1.8% cure mutation, 1.25% strong poison, 0.9% beneficial mutation, 0.85% blood, 0.6% porridge, 0.1% experience, 0.1% decay. these figures are exact, however, poison, berserk rage, and strong poison will be rerolled if the item level is low enough (unless it was just rerolled 500 times in a row, in which case it will generate). also, any of these can be turned into a stack of two or three, except for beneficial mutation, experience, and restore abilities (wtf), so that makes those three rarer.
these are also retarded by uniques, gnoll sergeants, and vaults. in particular sewers and ossuaries appear in a lot of games and usually have tons of scrolls/potions with completely different weights. ossuaries have a tradition of giving out like 5 paralysis/confusion/degeneration/slowification potions every time; this is one reason why they seem so common.

(Maybe ultra-specific item generation stuff like this sounds silly to you, but it would be difficult to get rid of. Would you really want that stack of 3 potions on dl1 to be heal wounds, haste, strong poison or mutation with equal chance?)

[mikee]

I don't want to comment on builds right now because I don't think that will be as universally helpful as something else I could say. Most importantly, I'd like to advise you to take your time and try to make use of everything you have. There are a lot of important items in this dump (even identified ones) that weren't being used, and any number of them could have saved your character. The wand is an obvious one, but the cloak and gloves you found were very important items for d:4, and you weren't wearing them. You were also at 3 hp the turn before you died, and the opponent you were fighting wasn't close to dead. Your first priority should have been to heal yourself with one of your two identified potions. Hope this helps.