Snake Sneak
Posts: 117
Joined: Sunday, 6th February 2011, 03:18
YAVP - 15 rune ninja chicken
Instead of going melee though, my chicken went the caster route. It started as an AE and worked its way through the early game using Shock-bouncing and Meph. Scary NPCs were avoided and when I found the Temple, I went Ash.
Ash was hellafun. Being able to sense enemies allowed for ambushing with things like Poison Cloud. Overall though, I found Ash to be more of a gimmick god. Everything Ash offers was non-essential to me. Well, everthing except the xp boost, I guess...
I had horrible loot luck this game. No book stores at all. Even though I got like 11 stores in Vault 8 and a Bazaar. The Trove I found was filled with books, but they were all earth magic and transumtations.
Cleared Swamp, Shoals, Vault, Crypt and Zot 1-4 without much incident. By then I still had not found rMut so I had to tackle Slime without it (found Stasis on Z4). Learned a valuable lesson there about how breaking LOS can save you from some mutation attacks. Royal Jelly went down to Nado. My merfolk has been avenged.
Next up was Tomb. I had neither Dispel Undead nor Necromutation. So I used Silence, Ugly Things, and stair dancing to get me through. I.e., call up some uglies, Silence, lure some big mummies back, hurt them and let the summons get the final blow to avoid the worst death curses. Took a while, but somehow I managed it.
Course I find Dispel Undead in Tomb 3.
Now all I had left was the Abyss, Pan and Hells. Still no Necromutation though. Wandering through the Abyss eventually got me another rune but no Necronomicon. So it was either ascend with 6, or say scroo it and try to do Pan/Hell without lich form.
After mulling it over, I said scroo it. Pan, here we come.
I remember reading a post by KoboldLord where he observed that you are bettter off (score-wise) just ninjaing the Pan/Hell runes instead of fighting the end bosses. So I figured that would be my game plan. Without rTorment, I wasn't gonna be able to stand toe-to-toe against Fiend packs anyway.
First rune found was Gloorx's. I used Ash's scrying power to pinpoint the rune, ported in, snagged it (while getting miasma'd) and was cornered by Executioners while waiting for the port out. Had to Berserk to get enough hp to survive until beam out.
Second rune was demonic. I knew the map from before and just Dug my way in, Apported the rune, and semi-controlled Blink to the gate out.
Third was Cerebov's. The gate dropped me in his loot stash so I stole as much as I could. Then lured Big Red out, teleported into his living room, Nado'd his balrugs, Apported the rune, and ported again to the exit.
That exit dumped me in Mnoleg's living room. Wonderful. Apport. Read scroll. Nado to hold off the baddies. Gone. Survived the encounter with only Degeneration 1. Could have been worse.
Fifth rune was Lom's. Magic mapped his level. Teleported in (right next to him and the rune). Snagged it. Ported out. All without Lom even waking up. That was fun.
I tried to get Lom's flunkies to banish me, but even with my modest MR, they couldn't pull it off. So I Firestormed em and banished myself using a distortion weapon.
Sixth rune was the icy one. Antywhatever in Cocywhatever. Just dove down, ignored the enemies and headed for the big cold lake. Got turned back a few times by Ice Fiends tormenting me down to like 60 hp. Third try finally got me in. Massacred the bodyguards with Nado and Apported the rune. Left Big Blue standing there like a chump.
Then it was Tar. Found Eshiwhatever with scry. Lured her out and ditched her using Passwall. Legged it to the rune (good thing Daydreamer was watching and knew where to go). Ported out after control kicked in.
Dis was second to last. By now, I had more than 14 magic mapper scrolls so I used them liberally to find the stairs down. Skipped Dis 1-6 easily this way. Found Dispater snoozing with his pair of Ice and normal Fiends. Was not about to mess with Hellfire/Torment in my current condition. So I fogged his throne room and ran (Hasted, of course) for the rune. Again, ported out after control kicked in.
Az was last. I dreaded tackling his castle since there was no easy way around him (I didn't have Shatter). Dove through Geh 1-6 using mappers again. Found the front gate of Az's castle guarded by an Orb chucking lich.
Blew him up using his own Orb.
Worked my way into Az's inner sanctum. Managed to run by him and leave him fighting my mob of Butterflies. The rune chamber, however, had a Fiend that almost kicked my arse. Two torments and a Hellfire can kill. Got taken down to 50 hp. Managed to survive by using Butterflies to block LOS, Berserked for more HP, and just grabbing the rune before a random Teleport kicked in. I think I survived with like 34 hp or something. It was a close one.
After that, it was just a matter of making sure I snagged all my runes and then running for the exit.
First time I ever tried to do Pan/Hells w/o TSO or lich. It was a rather educational experience. Also, I definitely agree with KoboldLord that ninjaing gets you a great score. Never found a Zig this game, so I never had to face the decision of trying to do one without Necromut/Borg/Door. Lucky me.
Oh, and I never did find the Necronomicon. Even after snagging every book I found in Pan and Hell. Sigh. I'm thinking Kiku next game...
http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/0.8/rootoo/morgue-rootoo-20110803-200616.txt
D:3 exclusion: Sigmund
- For this message the author Lantier has received thanks: 3
- Daydreamer, Hambone, pratamawirya