Newbie SpEn

Sunday, 13th April 2014, 13:54 by spanner

Hi All

I'm always played MiBe or GrBe as it seemed to be the easiest way into the game - no spells or God choices to worry about and plenty of HP to make minor mistakes with. While I've never has a win, my last char had 6 runes before I got greedy, so I suspect I'm not too far off...

Just for a change, I thought I'd play about with that other famous starting combo - SpEn. I'm sort of enjoying trying to adapt my playing style although I find it difficult to run away permanently - I'm more of a kill everything just to be sure kind of guy.

Anyway, I've got to the point where I'm really not sure what to do next. I sense my character is about to run up against things it can't yet deal with, but I've no clue what to do about it.

Here's the dump

Code:: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.13.1 (tiles) character file. sneako the Unseen (Spriggan Enchanter) Turns: 26537, Time: 04:21:49 HP 50/56 AC 6 Str 7 XL: 12 Next: 0% MP 39/39 EV 26 Int 17 God: Makhleb [*****.] Gold 668 SH 17 Dex 18 Spells: 3 memorised, 16 levels left Res.Fire : . . . See Invis. : + a - +2,+3 orc dagger (vamp) Res.Cold : . . . Warding : . X - +1 robe Life Prot.: . . . Conserve : . W - +0 buckler Res.Poison: . Res.Corr. : . D - +0 wizard hat Res.Elec. : . Clarity : . O - +2 cloak Sust.Abil.: . . Spirit.Shd : . (gloves unavailable) Res.Mut. : + Stasis : . (boots unavailable) Res.Rott. : . Flight : . o - amulet of resist mutation Saprovore : . . . w - ring of magical power Y - ring of invisibility @: very quick, quite resistant to hostile enchantments, extraordinarily stealthy A: unfitting armour, see invisible, herbivore 3, speed 3, slow metabolism 2 a: Minor Destruction, Lesser Servant of Makhleb, Major Destruction, Greater Servant of Makhleb, Renounce Religion, Evoke Invisibility You are on level 8 of the Dungeon. You worship Makhleb. Makhleb is extremely pleased with you. You are not hungry. You have visited 3 branches of the dungeon, and seen 15 of its levels. You have collected 712 gold pieces. You have spent 64 gold pieces at shops. Inventory: Hand weapons a - a +2,+3 orcish vampiric dagger (weapon) b - an uncursed blowgun S - a +0,+2 dagger of speed Missiles l - 24 poisoned needles u - 47 stones (quivered) Armour D - a +0 wizard hat (worn) O - a +2 cloak (worn) W - a +0 buckler (worn) X - a +1 robe (worn) Magical devices j - a wand of enslavement {zapped: 3} E - a wand of digging {zapped: 2} Comestibles m - a bread ration q - a choko F - an apricot Scrolls f - 2 scrolls of blinking n - a scroll of identify s - a scroll of magic mapping y - 2 scrolls of remove curse Jewellery o - an amulet of resist mutation (around neck) w - a ring of magical power (right hand) A - an uncursed ring of regeneration T - a +4 ring of evasion Y - a ring of invisibility (left hand) Potions e - a potion of porridge g - a potion of resistance i - a potion of brilliance L - 3 potions of curing Books c - a book of Maledictions Spells Type Level *Corona Hexes 1 Sure Blade Hexes/Charms 2 *Ensorcelled Hibernation Hexes/Ice 2 Confuse Hexes 3 Enslavement Hexes 4 *Invisibility Hexes 6 Skills: - Level 4.0 Fighting - Level 8.0 Short Blades - Level 1.1 Throwing - Level 10.1 Dodging - Level 15.2 Stealth + Level 7.2 Shields + Level 7.0 Spellcasting - Level 7.4 Hexes - Level 0.1 Ice Magic - Level 3.0 Evocations You have 16 spell levels left. You know the following spells: Your Spells Type Power Failure Level Hunger a - Corona Hex ####... 1% 1 None b - Ensorcelled Hibernat Hex/Ice ###... 3% 2 None c - Invisibility Hex ####.... 85% 6 ####### Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations Branches: Dungeon (8/27) Temple (1/1) D:7 Lair (6/8) D:8 Snake (0/5) Lair:5 Orc: D:6-11 Swamp: Lair:3-6 Shoals: Lair:3-6 Spider: Lair:3-6 Slime: Lair:6-8 Altars: Ashenzari Cheibriados Elyvilon Fedhas Kikubaaqudgha Makhleb Nemelex Xobeh Okawaru Sif Muna Trog Vehumet Xom Yredelemnul Zin the Shining One Jiyva Shops: D:5 * Annotations: D:3 Grinder D:7 Prince Ribbit Lair:4 Erica Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations You are tiny and cannot use many weapons and most armour. You have supernaturally acute eyesight. You are a herbivore. You cover ground extremely quickly. You need consume almost no food. Message History You feel sick. You feel sick. Saving game... please wait. Welcome back, sneako the Spriggan Enchanter. Blood and souls for Makhleb! Press ? for a list of commands and other information. There is a staircase to the Lair here. There is a staircase to the Lair here. There is a staircase to the Lair here. You feel sick. There is a staircase to the Lair here. You feel sick. You feel better. There is a staircase to the Lair here. There is a staircase to the Lair here. You start resting. Magic restored. Char dumped to 'C:/Users/Bob/AppData/Roaming/crawl/morgue/sneako.txt'. Use which ability? (? or * to list) Okay, then. ###...............>.# #....#.#.###........# .....#.#..###........# # #...##............... #.# ##...####.####.....# #.##..#..####.## ..... #.#..#...##.#.# .... .####.#..###..#### ..^ ..........#.#..## #######.###.#...# #.# #.#.@.# #.# #.#...# #.###..#### #######.#.#.## #.........### #.........# #.........# #.........# #.........# #.........# There are no monsters in sight! Vanquished Creatures A hydra (Lair:3) A death yak (Lair:5) Nergalle (Lair:4) Pikel (D:6) A griffon (Lair:3) A black mamba (Lair:4) 3 spiny frogs 3 komodo dragons 8 blink frogs 2 ravens (Lair:4) A basilisk (Lair:3) 2 hippogriffs 13 yaks 3 wolves (Lair:2) Edmund (D:4) 7 porcupines 2 sky beasts (D:6) A slave (D:5) 4 ogres A black bear (D:7) A centaur (D:5) A phantom (Lair:1) 6 crocodiles 4 giant slugs Blork the orc (D:6) 4 water moccasins 2 agate snails 11 giant frogs A gnoll sergeant (D:7) 4 killer bees (D:8) 4 crimson imps A gnoll shaman (D:7) A giant frog skeleton (D:7) 4 jellies 3 orc priests 10 worker ants 2 big fish (Lair:1) 5 hounds 2 scorpions 6 orc wizards 5 iguanas Terence (D:3) A hound zombie (D:5) 15 gnolls 51 green rats 19 adders A giant mite (D:1) An inept feature mimic (D:5) 2 giant centipedes 5 worms An iguana zombie (D:8) An adder zombie (D:5) 2 giant eyeballs 11 giant geckos 5 oozes 47 orcs 18 bats 3 giant cockroaches 14 goblins 12 hobgoblins 21 jackals 12 quokkas 4 ball pythons A giant gecko zombie (D:5) 7 giant newts A hobgoblin zombie (D:5) 10 kobolds An orc skeleton (D:5) An orc zombie (D:7) 23 rats A ballistomycete (D:7) 2 plants 429 creatures vanquished. Vanquished Creatures (others) A giant spore (D:7) 3 fungi (Lair:5) 3 plants A toadstool (D:2) 8 creatures vanquished. Grand Total: 437 creatures vanquished Notes Turn | Place | Note -------------------------------------------------------------- 0 | D:1 | sneako, the Spriggan Enchanter, began the quest for the Orb. 0 | D:1 | Reached XP level 1. HP: 9/9 MP: 4/4 34 | D:1 | Reached skill level 4 in Hexes 137 | D:1 | Reached XP level 2. HP: 13/13 MP: 6/6 915 | D:1 | Learned a level 2 spell: Ensorcelled Hibernation 958 | D:1 | Reached XP level 3. HP: 16/16 MP: 9/9 1445 | D:2 | Reached skill level 5 in Stealth 1603 | D:2 | Reached XP level 4. HP: 17/21 MP: 11/11 2210 | D:2 | Found a viscous altar of Jiyva. 2214 | D:2 | Reached skill level 6 in Stealth 2220 | D:2 | Reached XP level 5. HP: 24/24 MP: 15/15 2320 | D:3 | Noticed Grinder 2738 | D:3 | Noticed Terence 2742 | D:3 | Killed Terence 2822 | D:3 | Paralysed by Grinder for 5 turns 2827 | D:3 | HP: 1/24 [Grinder (3)] 3072 | D:3 | Reached skill level 7 in Stealth 4547 | D:4 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 2 turns 4563 | D:4 | Reached XP level 6. HP: 28/28 MP: 15/18 4989 | D:4 | Reached skill level 8 in Stealth 5054 | D:4 | Noticed Edmund 5209 | D:4 | Killed Edmund 5894 | D:4 | Reached skill level 9 in Stealth 5939 | D:4 | Reached XP level 7. HP: 32/32 MP: 20/20 6166 | D:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Dungeon 6338 | D:5 | Noticed a yak 6339 | D:5 | Found a white marble altar of Elyvilon. 6346 | D:5 | Killed a yak 6346 | D:5 | Reached skill level 10 in Stealth 6807 | D:5 | Reached skill level 5 in Spellcasting 7100 | D:5 | Reached skill level 1 in Evocations 7280 | D:6 | Reached XP level 8. HP: 20/36 MP: 23/23 7490 | D:5 | Found Maheiset's General Store. 7590 | D:5 | Bought a scroll of enchant weapon II for 60 gold pieces 7590 | D:5 | Bought a choko for 4 gold pieces 7622 | D:5 | Found a white marble altar of Elyvilon. 7647 | D:5 | Reached skill level 11 in Stealth 8046 | D:6 | Noticed Pikel 8046 | D:6 | Noticed Blork the orc 8258 | D:5 | Reached skill level 12 in Stealth 8538 | D:5 | Reached skill level 5 in Short Blades 9657 | D:6 | Reached skill level 13 in Stealth 9819 | D:6 | Reached skill level 5 in Hexes 10141 | D:6 | Reached XP level 9. HP: 21/39 MP: 25/25 10665 | D:6 | Killed Blork the orc 10887 | D:6 | Learned a level 6 spell: Invisibility 11740 | D:6 | Killed Pikel 11740 | D:6 | Reached skill level 14 in Stealth 11875 | D:7 | Found a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple. 13609 | D:7 | Noticed Prince Ribbit 14038 | Temple | Entered the Ecumenical Temple 14283 | Temple | Became a worshipper of Makhleb the Destroyer 14688 | D:7 | Reached skill level 15 in Stealth 15709 | D:7 | Acquired Makhleb's first power 16201 | D:8 | Found a staircase to the Lair. 16226 | Lair:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Lair of Beasts 16559 | Lair:1 | Reached skill level 1 in Shields 16559 | Lair:1 | Reached XP level 10. HP: 44/44 MP: 27/27 16808 | Lair:2 | Acquired Makhleb's second power 17098 | Lair:2 | HP: 1/44 [blink frog (5)] 17625 | Lair:1 | Reached skill level 1 in Fighting 19207 | Lair:1 | Acquired Makhleb's third power 20297 | Lair:1 | Reached skill level 5 in Dodging 20316 | Lair:1 | Reached XP level 11. HP: 38/50 MP: 5/28 20962 | Lair:3 | Acquired Makhleb's fourth power 21106 | Lair:2 | Reached skill level 5 in Shields 21858 | Lair:3 | Noticed a four-headed hydra 21884 | Lair:3 | Killed a four-headed hydra 22498 | Lair:3 | Noticed a griffon 22526 | Lair:3 | Killed a griffon 22743 | Lair:3 | Acquired Makhleb's fifth power 23197 | Lair:4 | Noticed Nergalle 23469 | Lair:4 | Reached skill level 10 in Dodging 23808 | Lair:4 | Noticed Erica 24301 | Lair:5 | Noticed a four-headed hydra 25079 | Lair:5 | Noticed a death yak 25080 | Lair:5 | Noticed a death yak 25081 | Lair:5 | Noticed a death yak 25164 | Lair:5 | Killed a death yak 25672 | Lair:5 | Found a staircase to the Snake Pit. 25951 | Lair:4 | Killed Nergalle 26449 | D:8 | Reached XP level 12. HP: 56/56 MP: 30/30 Action | 1- 3 | 4- 6 | 7- 9 | 10-12 || total -------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------++------- Melee: Dagger | 125 | 244 | 727 | 1407 || 2503 Fire: Blowgun | | 15 | 23 | || 38 Throw: Dart | 58 | 76 | 325 | 34 || 493 Dagger | 1 | 20 | 14 | 7 || 42 Stone | | 43 | 67 | 127 || 237 Spear | | 1 | 7 | 1 || 9 Cast: Corona | 2 | | | || 2 Ensorcelled Hiber | 6 | 16 | 55 | 115 || 192 Abil: Evoke Invisibilit | | | 5 | 1 || 6 Evoke: Wand | | 1 | 1 | 12 || 14 Use: Potion | | 1 | 3 | 2 || 6 Scroll | | 1 | 5 | 6 || 12 Stab: Sleeping | 6 | 21 | 52 | 85 || 164 Distracted | | 2 | 2 | 4 || 8 Invisible | | | 3 | 2 || 5

I've read some other posts and the guide on the Wiki - and I've come up with the following as a plan - what would be the best order to tackle them in?
I guess I need some armour skill at some point - I've a mottled dragon armour in my stash (but not much else)
I need some Invocations before I call upon Mahleb's servants
I need to get the failure rate of Invisibility down a bit - I presume Spellcasting does this?
I've been struggling with food, but I notice that EH now has no hunger cost - that's handy! Should I train Hexes or Ice Magic to keep EH working as I work down the dungeon?

Thanks in advance
Spanner

Sunday, 13th April 2014, 14:01 by Sandman25

No, Hexes is 4 times more effective than Spellcasting in decreasing failure rate and spell power of Invisibility (http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Spell_failure#Spell_skills).
Any spell can be hungerless with high enough Int and Spellcasting (http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Spell_hunger)

Sunday, 13th April 2014, 15:30 by rchandra

Train just hexes and ice now (Ice up to 3 or so, then just hexes) to get more power on EH and success on Invisibility. Also, memorise confuse and enslavement. When Invisibility is good enough (5% or so) then Invocations would be good.
There is very little in the whole game that you can't deal with between invis, your hexes, and walking away.
The next time you're hungry, have the porridge since it's more fragile than other food.

Sunday, 13th April 2014, 20:21 by Lyrick

nice dagger.

train hexes until about 10 or 11. that ought to bring the failure rate of invisibility to about 30%. going a little further is always nice though.
you might wanna start training invocations.

drop that ring of invisibility. its wasting a ring slot, and you already have the spell. you don't want to waste another couple levels in evocations just to make that thing usable cause you will already be training hexes to get confuse and EH to nice spellpower. (the ring doesn't help in any other way anyway)

you are a stabber, and you do cast spells, but +4 evasion is pretty nifty and you don't need all that extra mp

Sunday, 13th April 2014, 20:36 by Sandman25

Ring of invisibility is better than Invisibility spell because evoked invisibility can be cancelled at any time.

Sunday, 13th April 2014, 21:57 by and into

Sandman25 wrote:Ring of invisibility is better than Invisibility spell because evoked invisibility can be cancelled at any time.

Invisibility is really strong. The spell is stronger/better if you are casting other hexes. Otherwise evoked invisibility is really good but primarily because you generally need less skill investment to get it online (due to evoc failure being much less of a big deal than miscasting a spell)—deep elves, vamps, and spriggans thanks to their crazy aptitudes maybe being an exception.

If you already have hexes trained for invisibility then the ring isn't needed, getting evocations just for evoked invisibility is a waste and not worth it for this character. I suppose it is technically an advantage but being able to cancel invisibility is so minor that it should not be a consideration at all, frankly.

Sunday, 13th April 2014, 22:40 by Sandman25

and into wrote:I suppose it is technically an advantage but being able to cancel invisibility is so minor that it should not be a consideration at all, frankly.

It allows to get less contamination, spend less food and press 5 less times while waiting for contamination to disappear. It is especially important for Sp since it's easily possible to run out of food because of overuse of the spell.

Sunday, 13th April 2014, 23:01 by mikee

spanner wrote:I've read some other posts and the guide on the Wiki

This is dangerous, but hopefully at least some of what you've read is influenced by elliptic.

I guess I need some armour skill at some point

No.

I need some Invocations before I call upon Mahleb's servants

Technically no, but increasing invocations will make them less likely to appear hostile. Around 10 invocations is sufficient for the entire game. Most importantly, though, the safety comes from not using greater servant when you are desperate. Ideally, you want to open a tough encounter with it and back away or escape if it's hostile.

I've been struggling with food

This may sound strange, but probably training dodging and fighting is more likely to save you food than anything else. You are most likely resting a lot, and reducing the amount of time that you need to rest is important. Also, take off that ring of magical power (drop it, probably) and put on the evasion ring.

Should I train Hexes or Ice Magic to keep EH working as I work down the dungeon?

Um... OK, this is your situation: EH is perfectly castable right now, so that increasing either skill for it would do nothing but slightly increase the likelihood of it passing a monster's mr check. You might want 1 point total of ice magic, sure, since all you have to do is kill like one yak to get it, but beyond that you'd mostly not be getting anything for your xp. What you should really be doing is deciding if you want to get your invis from the spell or the ring of invis. Either choice is fine; personally I prefer the spell on an enchanter as it can be less annoying long-term and doesn't steal your ring slot. This would mean you want enough spellcasting and hexes to cast invisibility. This means you do not need more than 12 hexes for the entire game. Also, you should learn confuse and enslavement and remove corona.

Hope this helps.

Monday, 14th April 2014, 00:35 by and into

Sandman25 wrote:
and into wrote:I suppose it is technically an advantage but being able to cancel invisibility is so minor that it should not be a consideration at all, frankly.

It allows to get less contamination, spend less food and press 5 less times while waiting for contamination to disappear. It is especially important for Sp since it's easily possible to run out of food because of overuse of the spell.

You are recommending a SpEn, who already wants to get hexes skill, to train evocations solely for the purpose of evocable invisibility? I'm sorry but that is absolutely terrible advice. Of course you *could* do that and still be fine because, you know, spriggans... but what you are telling OP to do is strictly bad advice.

Also the hunger cost for *activating* invisibility through evocations cannot be mitigated—like rods—and accounts for nearly all the hunger cost from using it, so in fact you are probably going to use lot more food using a ring of invisibility. I think there's a slight increase to metabolism while actually invisible... I think? It is a very tiny fraction of the total hunger cost from evoking invisibility though, mostly you pay up front. Contamination does accrue while invisible but it really isn't a big deal and I'm pretty sure the biggest shot of contam comes from first activating invisibility.

I mean you shouldn't be worrying too much about food costs anyway, but if you are worried about food costs, then using evocable invisibility when you could just cast the spell is precisely backward. Just train some extra spell casting and raise int, voila.

The real advantage to the ring I guess is that it is cheaper—2 mp rather than 6. If OP had lots of other good evocable abilities or whatnot it would be a sensible way to go, but in this case really OP should just get hexes up to the point that invisibility is reliable. This will also give enslavement and confuse a nice punch, since those are good spells, and mass confusion if OP should come across it.

Monday, 14th April 2014, 00:39 by Sandman25

No, I am not suggesting to train Evocations. I am suggesting to ignore advice "drop that ring of invisibility. its wasting a ring slot, and you already have the spell.". This ring can be very useful for SpEn who needs to kill 1-2 monsters and has time for several attempts to evoke the ring. Typical use - explore, find a dangerous unique, retreat 1 tile, successfully evoke the ring, kill the unique, cancel invisibility.

Monday, 14th April 2014, 00:57 by and into

Sandman25 wrote:No, I am not suggesting to train Evocations. I am suggesting to ignore advice "drop that ring of invisibility. its wasting a ring slot, and you already have the spell.". This ring can be very useful for SpEn who needs to kill 1-2 monsters and has time for several attempts to evoke the ring. Typical use - explore, find a dangerous unique, retreat 1 tile, successfully evoke the ring, kill the unique, cancel invisibility.

Ah, ok. Sure, I agree. Until the spell invisibility is online, there is no reason not to carry =invisibility around, yes.

Monday, 14th April 2014, 00:59 by Sar

He's suggesting using invisibility ring even after you have the spell because you can cancel evoked invisibility (and spend less time waiting out Contam, I guess) and you can just attempt evoking it until it works since there is not "Evocations miscast".

Monday, 14th April 2014, 01:09 by and into

Sar wrote:He's suggesting using invisibility ring even after you have the spell because you can cancel evoked invisibility (and spend less time waiting out Contam, I guess) and you can just attempt evoking it until it works since there is not "Evocations miscast".

Yeah I know there's no evocations miscast, but once I have the spell online personally I wouldn't bother carrying the ring around in the off chance that I have to go invisible but only have 2 MP to spare, yet have extra turns to spare such that 58% failure chance doesn't matter. That just seems like such a super niche case for me that I wouldn't bother, but I guess carrying the ring doesn't have a cost associated with it, so long as you got the space for it in the inventory. So if you want to knock yourself out.

I did misunderstand in that I thought Sandman25 was saying to train evocations for invis rather than hexes.

Monday, 14th April 2014, 02:08 by Patashu

and into wrote:That just seems like such a super niche case for me that I wouldn't bother, but I guess carrying the ring doesn't have a cost associated with it, so long as you got the space for it in the inventory.

Sure it does, it costs mental energy to lug it around.

Every time you open up inventory, put on or take off jewellery or think about going invisible you are forced to look at the thing (even if not intentionally and think) 'I can do this with the ring, should I bother this time?' And no matter how fast you come to the answer there's a little bit of cognitive burden there. If the answer is always 'N' then the value of carrying the ring around (Even if it didn't take a slot or aums) is negative.

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