YAVP: 3-rune HuCK


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Slime Squisher

Posts: 419

Joined: Monday, 12th September 2016, 16:25

Post Friday, 20th April 2018, 02:11

YAVP: 3-rune HuCK

http://lilac.dynamic.greenend.org.uk/morgue/damerell/morgue-damerell-20180418-060512.txt

I'm afraid this is a second heavy-armour monster-whacker in a row; I thought Xom would probably joggle my elbow quite enough without trying to get fancy with anything else. I went human because, well, might as well get the most average species out the way with the most idiosyncratic god. Likewise I didn't fancy any extra-rune stunts when my god might just opt to put me in a lethal spot any time. This was the fourth chaos knight I tried, losing three to Pikel, Ijyb, and an ice beast.

This nearly wasn't a win; ceb's ghost got me to HP 1/79 on D:8. I know ceb IRL and I think they're secretly pleased they came as close to stopping me as anything did. Other than that the early dungeon was OK except for a nasty hornet encounter on D:9; Dowan and Duvessa could have been a problem, but Xom was in a helpful mood on that occasion.

On D:10 I ate the purple to try and entertain Xom, losing robust. I'm not sure what I was thinking, since apart from some minor stat losses I had a pretty solid mutation set.

Urug nearly collected me on Lair:3 but otherwise Lair was not too bad. Xom was still playing around with mutations but other than a quick trip into frail there was nothing too serious, and Xom did pass out rElec and left it on me for me to use it to kill Nikola.

Fannar was being a problem in Orc but Xom kindly turned him into a deep troll. On O:2 I got the +2 pair of gloves of Pandemonium {rPois MR- Str+7 Dex+4} which I'd use for a while in spite of the MR problems - I had to dump my +1 ring mail of the Apprentice {Int+2 Dex+6} for the +1 chain mail of Life {MR+} but still seemed to be ahead overall.

I stuck my nose into Shoals first in the hope of scooping up some javelins or even a demon trident. What I got was nearly killed by a merfolk impaler, so I gave that up as a bad idea and cleared out the rest of Dungeon. It had a lajatang of speed, which was a bit of a problem - it was clearly much better than anything I had until then, but I'd invested in Polearms and Shields. I used it for the time being but I wasn't sure what I'd do if a demon trident _did_ turn up. I did start skilling Staves to get it to mindelay.

After that I went to Snake. Snake was the usual unique party with Agnes, Nikola, and Donald - Donald got turned into an azure jelly which I'm not sure was really helpful. However, Xom gave me "do not regenerate when monsters are visible" to replace my +Regen, which I wasn't too keen on; I ate more purple, to lose my rElec (thankfully after killing Nikola) and AC+2.

On Snake:4 a naga sharpshooter had a decent go at killing me, but I got away. Xom gave me antennae, put the +Regen back (thanks), and then handed out a bag of nice mutations and blurry vision. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to risk them all for the sake of getting rid of blurry vision, especially since it could take several goes, so I decided to live with it for now.

Back to Shoals, where a merfolk javelineer decided merfolk impalers shouldn't have all the fun and had a decent go at killing me. Other than that it was not too bad until Ilsuiw turned up after getting the rune; Xom turned her into a shadow dragon, but I'm not sure that was really an improvement. Shoals:4 did produce the demon trident I wanted, and after a bit of agonising I decided to swap from the lajatang because my defenses weren't great and getting a shield back would help. (Of course later I ended up in a CPA with about a billion AC...)

Vaults was next; it got a bit hairy as Vaults often does, especially when Bai Suzhen and Xtahua turned up at the same time. On V:3 I found a desolation of salt, which I entered for the second time ever; it was also a bit hairy in places and in particular Xom made a ragged hierophant into a shining eye which promptly frail-ified me, which was utterly exasperating. Xom took away my antennae then returned them, a precursor to showering me with helmets for the rest of the game. Thanks, Xom!

On the way out of Vaults 1-4 Xom handed me deterioration but also MR+, which again was a bit of a headscratcher; I hate deterioration but the MR+ was exactly what I needed. On balance, given the blurry vision, I came down on the side of eating more purple; however, Xom would take away deterioration in E:3 and I'd leave it be after that.

I did Elf next; in my experience it's generally not as bad as Depths where open spaces can produce huge numbers of tough monsters unexpectedly. Sometimes you luck out with the Elf:3 room of bastards, and I did here, with manuals of Armour, Hexes, and Stealth.

At this point I was in a CPA (which I'd enchanted up in spite of a sneaky suspicion I'd find a GDS later, which I did) and wasn't sure if cashing the manual of Stealth would even give me positive stealth (it did, but only just and because of mutations which Xom could have removed, so this probably wasn't worth it) or if the manual of Hexes would let me get any hexes usefully castable (this definitely worked out, giving me Tukima's Dance to mess up draconian packs and Spectral Weapon - which I used only twice but was really useful those two times; I should have used it a lot more). The manual of Armour was definitely welcome, though.

Elf:3 also had the +1 pair of gloves "Bupaotz" {*Contam Regen+ Dex+6} which in spite of worse stats I though was an improvement over struggling for MR with my old gloves. (Of course Xom would then give me a second MR mutation so if it wasn't for the *Contam I could have swapped back - such is life...)

Next I did Depths; U:2 produced a horde of caustic shrikes which was an unwelcome development, and Xom gave me frail again, once again tipping me over the line into eating the purple, which thankfully removed frail before anything good. I don't remember Depths otherwise being too bad, but I daresay there were one or two bad moments.

Now I had the tricky 3rd rune question, which I addressed as I usually do - by going to the Crypt. Mara turned up on C:1 but I guessed right first time at Mara roulette. A curse skull gave me serious trouble on C:2 and then Xom teleported me into the room of bastards on C:3, but I survived both these difficulties. I learned a bunch more hexes on C:3 having decent skill at this point; I'd also learn Cause Fear later but didn't really use it - I never know how to predict success chances for these AoE hexes, which is a pity because I gather it's pretty good.

In the Crypt Xom gave me robust, clarity, rF+, Dex+2, rPois, and second pips of Stealth and MR, which was about peak generosity. All downhill from there, of course.

Next was V:5; I got a lucky landing off a hatch and cleared it without real difficulty. I found the ring "Wuyteibo" {Wiz Str+7} which took my hexes from marginal to really extremely viable.

After clearing V:5 I went on a shopping trip to buy all the consumables I'd tagged - of course this is a more dubious proposition with Xom than with an ordinary god where you just lose a bit of piety and perhaps a ration, and Xom decided it was time to take away robust, Regen+, and blurry vision. That would probably have been a net plus if I hadn't been about to go to Zot where blinking and teleportation are less use anyway. Xom continued this theme by taking away a pip of MR and clarity in Zot, but did give mutation resistance which was nice to have given the number of OOFs that turned up on Z:5.

I cleared Zot - I usually do - but not the portion of Z:5 outside the orb vault; given that at any moment Xom might decide to teleport me into the orb vault, I didn't want to waste any time.

Things got a bit hairy in one side lobe with multiple OOFs, but I burned consumables to run away behind a horde of summons then used berserk rage to polish off what survived the summons - risky but successful; but while still clearing that lobe Xom teleported me into the other one to meet two more OOFs, a moth of wrath, and two Orb Guardians which the moth promptly berserked. This looked pretty bad and I was reduced to backing up and chaining heal wounds while waiting for a teleport to kick in (and hoping I got lucky) but Xom then teleported me a second time - somewhere safe. Of course then my teleport kicked in and took me somewhere not so safe (albeit still outside the orb vault) but I managed to get a defensible spot and survive that one.

After that clearing the rest of my side lobe was fine. I saw three panlords on the orbrun - two on D:1 - but all of them were normal speed so I just walked away from them, and Xom resisted the urge to interfere much on the orbrun.

Looking back, with my huge stack of sacks of spiders, boxes of beasts, and phantom mirrors, I should have taken more Evocations.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.

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Pandemonium Purger

Posts: 1298

Joined: Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 02:42

Location: Sydney, Australia

Post Friday, 20th April 2018, 12:03

Re: YAVP: 3-rune HuCK

"Of course then my teleport kicked in and took me somewhere not so safe (albeit still outside the orb vault) but I managed to get a defensible spot and survive that one."

Don't forget that if you have Tele status and you don't want to teleport, another source of teleport will cancel it.

(Assuming that you got a turn between the Xom teleport and the 2nd one. If not, nevermind.)

Slime Squisher

Posts: 419

Joined: Monday, 12th September 2016, 16:25

Post Friday, 20th April 2018, 13:40

Re: YAVP: 3-rune HuCK

Patashu wrote:Don't forget that if you have Tele status and you don't want to teleport, another source of teleport will cancel it.


Thanks. I did remember that, but only too late.

Nice to know someone reads these walls of text. :-)
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.

Spider Stomper

Posts: 216

Joined: Saturday, 25th March 2017, 16:51

Post Saturday, 21st April 2018, 00:42

Re: YAVP: 3-rune HuCK

damerell wrote:
Patashu wrote:Don't forget that if you have Tele status and you don't want to teleport, another source of teleport will cancel it.


Thanks. I did remember that, but only too late.

Nice to know someone reads these walls of text. :-)

I love reading these stories. Unfortunately, I never remember enough from my adventures to tell them myself.

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Fingolfin

Slime Squisher

Posts: 419

Joined: Monday, 12th September 2016, 16:25

Post Saturday, 21st April 2018, 05:57

Re: YAVP: 3-rune HuCK

Zhorgal wrote:I love reading these stories. Unfortunately, I never remember enough from my adventures to tell them myself.


To be honest, while I much prefer Crawl in other respects, I did find that NetHack developed much more of a story. I can't say why (besides that one had to take more notes during a game of NetHack, aha) but often it's hard to get much more out of a Crawl game than "I did the branches in this order because X", "used this gear because Y", and if you're mediocre like me "I started using tactic Z that was new to me". Conversely even though 99% of monsters in the midgame onwards in NetHack are windshield kills, there tends to be more of a yarn to tell. Perhaps that's partly because the game's love of "aha, typo!" gotchas makes it likely there'll be at least one moment of moderate hilarity during an ascension.

PS: Because my win reports aren't long enough (this is a lie) I occasionally review ttyrecs with IPBT (ofc any ttyrec player would do) for a blow-by-blow of tricky moments. I reviewed practically my entire orb vault excursion on OpGl, not least because it was a horrifying mess of mistakes where I deserved to die more than once.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.
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Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4478

Joined: Wednesday, 23rd October 2013, 07:56

Post Saturday, 21st April 2018, 18:56

Re: YAVP: 3-rune HuCK

Zhorgal wrote:I love reading these stories. Unfortunately, I never remember enough from my adventures to tell them myself.

You took the words from my mouth.
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
Bloat: 17: RaRoPrPh{GuStGnCa}{ArEtZoNb}KiPaAnDrBXDBQOApDaMeAGBiOCNKAsFnFlUs{RoBoNeWi

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