Slime Squisher
Posts: 419
Joined: Monday, 12th September 2016, 16:25
Sunday, 24th February 2019, 17:39
YAVP:5-rune GnIE of Chei (oneandwon)
http://www.montres.org.uk/morgue/damerell/morgue-damerell-20190223-232542.txt
I've been working my way through a win with every god in the game, and I knew at some point that would mean getting to Chei. I've had half a dozen Chei attempts in the past, and they've all been pretty soul-destroying; it seems like depending on the kind of character one of three things happens. You start with melee; a bunch of ranged enemies turn up, or someone like Sonja does, you can neither close down the range nor get back around a corner, and you die. You start with ranged; you run out of ammo because you don't have a gifting god and it's difficult to close down popcorn for melee, and you die. You start with magic; you run out of MP and can't run away, and you die.
It seemed like gnoll might be the answer, able to use melee, ranged, or magic equally well and so having a response at any range. Also, I think gnoll has a really easy start with its initial skills being focussed but using those whopping aptitudes; and I guessed Chei was going to be worst early, when the stat boost is minimal and you don't have the divine abilities yet, but you still can't run away from a speed-10 monster. (As it happened I didn't find an altar until D:9 so the period of having oddball early skills didn't overlap with Chei at all).
I've mellowed a bit to Chei as a result of this win. A bit like naga, it's undeniably bad to be slow, but in the later game at least you are going to be slow and hard as nails, and that's a lot less bad than just being slow. The gnoll scheme worked out marvellously; I used a few Slouches, but didn't need to mess about with Temporal Distortion to get monsters close or Step From Time to make them go away.
The early game was a pretty normal IE start, with the bonus of Ozo's Armour coming online soon thanks to gnoll's initial skill distributions. I found a book on D:7 with Blink and Conjure Flame (leading to an endless series of idiot moves where I'd Throw Frost through a Conjure Flame), and then got Throw Icicle and Summon Ice Beast. I made hardly any use of ice beasts (although I know they're good from playing summoners) but Throw Icicle stayed with me all game. I was a bit vexed not to find Chei in the Temple, and as a result was only starting to develop Chei piety in Lair.
I had a moderately close call with an ice devil in an ice cave, but otherwise Lair seems to have been relatively undramatic; I got a +5 arbalest of venom which was pretty serviceable for a while, and killed off my ghost from my very last game.
After Lair I cleared out Orc. There wasn't really anything to buy except for one bookshop. Now, my long-term roguelike-playing friend ceb and I differ slightly in our approach to the game; I would tell you I take a contemplative approach, and ceb would tell you I'm hopelessly consumed by analysis paralysis.
The downside to playing gnoll is I spent a lot of the game pondering what equipment to use or spells to learn (not helped by a plentiful supply of amnesia), and nothing could be calculated to exacerbate this more than an entire shop full of books any one of which I could buy.
A few days later I picked up the game again to decide I'd buy none of the books until it became clear what I was lacking. This worked out beautifully when I found another shop on D:11 and it became clear what I was lacking was Wyrmbane, a handy find not just because then I had Wyrmbane but because then I could stop wondering what melee weapon to use.
I also found a +7 randart hunting sling of flaming (with rC+) which I'd use for almost all the game; just before Zot I admitted a fusti wasn't going to turn up and made myself an ordinary +9 sling of freezing. This was pretty handy - with spells available as well, I never had to fire anything but sling bullets from it - except shortly after I found a randart amulet with {RegenMP rElec rPois rF-} which was much better than anything else I had except that I had to swap body armour to not have a fire vulnerability. Later, after getting rid of that amulet, I then kept being surprised by poison clouds when swapping to the sling and thus turning off Wyrmbane's rPois.
Spider was OK except I boneheadedly went for Roxanne; it worked out, but I had no business attacking her to begin with. Emperor scorpions took a lot of killing with a still circa +8 Wyrmbane, but when you can just blink away from them, it's not a problem. Shoals was a bit hairier - it normally is - and I took Fireball and BVC because I was feeling my ability to deal with crowds of monsters was a bit lacking.
I was badly lacking MR and spent a lot of Vaults being marked, and on V:2 I ran into Mennas (thankfully, not while marked). Mennas is to my mind easily the nastiest thing in Vaults, and I've died more than once to him, and he might have got me here; at this point I had Death Channel and had some spectral things out, and read a summoning which filled the room with a gratifying large amount of allies, so I relaxed and didn't use any more consumables.
Mennas, of course, promptly beat the snot out of all these summons while blocking all my attacks. Fortunately I realised in time, but the false impression that I was easily winning the fight could have tripped me up badly. He turned out to have had the shield of Ignorance, which didn't damage my spell failure chances badly enough not to be attractive; I'd use it almost all game.
On V:4 I found the cloak of Starlight, which I don't think I've seen before; I regretted the loss of stealth, but this turned out to be moot shortly when I found a CPA in Depths, and realised with a bit of rearrangement of my equipment I could get a huge increase in defences if I was willing to give up level 6 spells. Part of this rearrangement was losing that rN+++ amulet, so I thought I'd do Crypt first and rearrange afterwards.
Crypt was OK apart from one nasty curse skull encounter, and turned out to be an excellent idea because it contains a lot of undead dragons. A gold dragon zombie is much easier to kill than a gold dragon, but powers up Wyrmbane just as well; I got Wyrmbane to +18 here - and picked up the ring of Robustness. I did get Abyssed thanks to my rotten MR, but got out easily.
After Crypt I took LRD in the hope of getting an AoE spell with a bit more grunt than Fireball, since I couldn't use the level 6 bolt spells. This was a mixed blessing; in Stoat Soup, LRD still digs rock, which tends to mean that pretty soon whoever you were LRD-ing isn't standing next to a wall, and furthermore you're digging some nice handy access for all their friends to get at you. Still, I got some mileage out of it.
Depths then turned up the Enchantress who dropped the +5 faerie dragon scales {rCorr Str+3 Int+3}. This set off another round of analysis paralysis; wearing this, and rearranging the rest of my gear, I could manage level 7 spells - perhaps even level 8 spells with brilliance. I decided to leave it be for now but did get some mileage out of it later. Depths also turned up two bazaars which disappointingly contained nothing I wanted to buy except a single potion of might. (Admittedly, complaining that weapon shops are useless because you've got Wyrmbane is a bit silly...)
In spite of my still-bad MR I cleared out Elf, which posed no problem at all at this point but didn't really give me anything useful except some spells to analyse-paralyse over. I went to V:5 next; I stairdanced it until a vault warden turned up (I was pretty confident I could nuke one if it did lock down the stairs), then hatched down. I seem to have been well able to deal with all this, since I realised (embarassingly) after all the analysis paralysis I'd forgotten to put my shield back on, yet hadn't taken significant damage. I cleared the rest of V:5 without difficulty.
Here I decided I could use the faerie dragon scales and the miscellaneous wizardry and Int+ equipment I had to get level 8 spells online; Ignition does some things very well, and one of them is that it might almost be custom-made for killing TRJ. I had so many amnesias, I didn't care about learning a spell just for one branch. I went to Slime, worked my way down without any trouble, found TRJ, poked it once with Wyrmbane, and cast Ignition three times; job done. This was well worth it since I found a randart amulet with {Spirit rF++ Dex-4 Stlth+} - ideal for tackling OOFs. I also had a brief moment of joy upon trying on +2 boots of running (curse you, Chei) but did find the ponderhat, largely solving my MR problem.
I was a bit reluctant to have a go at Abyss after a dire 15,000 turn Abyssal rune rune recently, but decided to stick my nose in and see how it turned out; as it happened I got down to A:3 and found the rune after only a few hundred turns, one of the places where gnoll item-sense really helped out by giving me a hunch I was looking at the outside of the rune vault.
To Zot! To, as is normal for me, stop immediately after going in and remember I wanted to buy all the stuff on my shopping list. I also had a fresh round of analysis paralysis over whether I should rework my equipment to be able to use IOOD (which in my experience is ever so effective on OOFs) or maybe even level 8 spells, or just go on in the crystal plate with level 5 spells. I decided to try the latter and see how it panned out, but on reflection this was a false dichotomy; with the ponderhat I could have used level 6 spells and hence have had Iron Shot to pound on OOFs, and maybe with brilliance could have used IOOD with no equipment changes at all.
Zot:1-4 was mostly OK but I had a horrible run-in with a curse toe on Z:4 which tormented me thrice in a row; however, its summons don't see invisible so I could drink invisibility, get behind a wall of summons of my own, and use up some of my large supply of heal wounds.
Z:5 was surprisingly short on the usual unpleasantness with one alich and three orbs of fire; I used a might for each one but one of them gave me berserkitis. This was a bit of a mixed curse - with Wyrmbane and Chei stats and berserk you can beat almost anything flat in no time - but I figured I'd only pass out at the least opportune time, and mutrouletted it out. The orbrun itself was very uneventful - I don't know how much that was good luck, how much Chei - except for two panlords in D, both of whom I just holy worded and meleed.
So, that's done. I'm running out of gods; might have a think about how to do Elyvilon.
I've been working my way through a win with every god in the game, and I knew at some point that would mean getting to Chei. I've had half a dozen Chei attempts in the past, and they've all been pretty soul-destroying; it seems like depending on the kind of character one of three things happens. You start with melee; a bunch of ranged enemies turn up, or someone like Sonja does, you can neither close down the range nor get back around a corner, and you die. You start with ranged; you run out of ammo because you don't have a gifting god and it's difficult to close down popcorn for melee, and you die. You start with magic; you run out of MP and can't run away, and you die.
It seemed like gnoll might be the answer, able to use melee, ranged, or magic equally well and so having a response at any range. Also, I think gnoll has a really easy start with its initial skills being focussed but using those whopping aptitudes; and I guessed Chei was going to be worst early, when the stat boost is minimal and you don't have the divine abilities yet, but you still can't run away from a speed-10 monster. (As it happened I didn't find an altar until D:9 so the period of having oddball early skills didn't overlap with Chei at all).
I've mellowed a bit to Chei as a result of this win. A bit like naga, it's undeniably bad to be slow, but in the later game at least you are going to be slow and hard as nails, and that's a lot less bad than just being slow. The gnoll scheme worked out marvellously; I used a few Slouches, but didn't need to mess about with Temporal Distortion to get monsters close or Step From Time to make them go away.
The early game was a pretty normal IE start, with the bonus of Ozo's Armour coming online soon thanks to gnoll's initial skill distributions. I found a book on D:7 with Blink and Conjure Flame (leading to an endless series of idiot moves where I'd Throw Frost through a Conjure Flame), and then got Throw Icicle and Summon Ice Beast. I made hardly any use of ice beasts (although I know they're good from playing summoners) but Throw Icicle stayed with me all game. I was a bit vexed not to find Chei in the Temple, and as a result was only starting to develop Chei piety in Lair.
I had a moderately close call with an ice devil in an ice cave, but otherwise Lair seems to have been relatively undramatic; I got a +5 arbalest of venom which was pretty serviceable for a while, and killed off my ghost from my very last game.
After Lair I cleared out Orc. There wasn't really anything to buy except for one bookshop. Now, my long-term roguelike-playing friend ceb and I differ slightly in our approach to the game; I would tell you I take a contemplative approach, and ceb would tell you I'm hopelessly consumed by analysis paralysis.
The downside to playing gnoll is I spent a lot of the game pondering what equipment to use or spells to learn (not helped by a plentiful supply of amnesia), and nothing could be calculated to exacerbate this more than an entire shop full of books any one of which I could buy.
A few days later I picked up the game again to decide I'd buy none of the books until it became clear what I was lacking. This worked out beautifully when I found another shop on D:11 and it became clear what I was lacking was Wyrmbane, a handy find not just because then I had Wyrmbane but because then I could stop wondering what melee weapon to use.
I also found a +7 randart hunting sling of flaming (with rC+) which I'd use for almost all the game; just before Zot I admitted a fusti wasn't going to turn up and made myself an ordinary +9 sling of freezing. This was pretty handy - with spells available as well, I never had to fire anything but sling bullets from it - except shortly after I found a randart amulet with {RegenMP rElec rPois rF-} which was much better than anything else I had except that I had to swap body armour to not have a fire vulnerability. Later, after getting rid of that amulet, I then kept being surprised by poison clouds when swapping to the sling and thus turning off Wyrmbane's rPois.
Spider was OK except I boneheadedly went for Roxanne; it worked out, but I had no business attacking her to begin with. Emperor scorpions took a lot of killing with a still circa +8 Wyrmbane, but when you can just blink away from them, it's not a problem. Shoals was a bit hairier - it normally is - and I took Fireball and BVC because I was feeling my ability to deal with crowds of monsters was a bit lacking.
I was badly lacking MR and spent a lot of Vaults being marked, and on V:2 I ran into Mennas (thankfully, not while marked). Mennas is to my mind easily the nastiest thing in Vaults, and I've died more than once to him, and he might have got me here; at this point I had Death Channel and had some spectral things out, and read a summoning which filled the room with a gratifying large amount of allies, so I relaxed and didn't use any more consumables.
Mennas, of course, promptly beat the snot out of all these summons while blocking all my attacks. Fortunately I realised in time, but the false impression that I was easily winning the fight could have tripped me up badly. He turned out to have had the shield of Ignorance, which didn't damage my spell failure chances badly enough not to be attractive; I'd use it almost all game.
On V:4 I found the cloak of Starlight, which I don't think I've seen before; I regretted the loss of stealth, but this turned out to be moot shortly when I found a CPA in Depths, and realised with a bit of rearrangement of my equipment I could get a huge increase in defences if I was willing to give up level 6 spells. Part of this rearrangement was losing that rN+++ amulet, so I thought I'd do Crypt first and rearrange afterwards.
Crypt was OK apart from one nasty curse skull encounter, and turned out to be an excellent idea because it contains a lot of undead dragons. A gold dragon zombie is much easier to kill than a gold dragon, but powers up Wyrmbane just as well; I got Wyrmbane to +18 here - and picked up the ring of Robustness. I did get Abyssed thanks to my rotten MR, but got out easily.
After Crypt I took LRD in the hope of getting an AoE spell with a bit more grunt than Fireball, since I couldn't use the level 6 bolt spells. This was a mixed blessing; in Stoat Soup, LRD still digs rock, which tends to mean that pretty soon whoever you were LRD-ing isn't standing next to a wall, and furthermore you're digging some nice handy access for all their friends to get at you. Still, I got some mileage out of it.
Depths then turned up the Enchantress who dropped the +5 faerie dragon scales {rCorr Str+3 Int+3}. This set off another round of analysis paralysis; wearing this, and rearranging the rest of my gear, I could manage level 7 spells - perhaps even level 8 spells with brilliance. I decided to leave it be for now but did get some mileage out of it later. Depths also turned up two bazaars which disappointingly contained nothing I wanted to buy except a single potion of might. (Admittedly, complaining that weapon shops are useless because you've got Wyrmbane is a bit silly...)
In spite of my still-bad MR I cleared out Elf, which posed no problem at all at this point but didn't really give me anything useful except some spells to analyse-paralyse over. I went to V:5 next; I stairdanced it until a vault warden turned up (I was pretty confident I could nuke one if it did lock down the stairs), then hatched down. I seem to have been well able to deal with all this, since I realised (embarassingly) after all the analysis paralysis I'd forgotten to put my shield back on, yet hadn't taken significant damage. I cleared the rest of V:5 without difficulty.
Here I decided I could use the faerie dragon scales and the miscellaneous wizardry and Int+ equipment I had to get level 8 spells online; Ignition does some things very well, and one of them is that it might almost be custom-made for killing TRJ. I had so many amnesias, I didn't care about learning a spell just for one branch. I went to Slime, worked my way down without any trouble, found TRJ, poked it once with Wyrmbane, and cast Ignition three times; job done. This was well worth it since I found a randart amulet with {Spirit rF++ Dex-4 Stlth+} - ideal for tackling OOFs. I also had a brief moment of joy upon trying on +2 boots of running (curse you, Chei) but did find the ponderhat, largely solving my MR problem.
I was a bit reluctant to have a go at Abyss after a dire 15,000 turn Abyssal rune rune recently, but decided to stick my nose in and see how it turned out; as it happened I got down to A:3 and found the rune after only a few hundred turns, one of the places where gnoll item-sense really helped out by giving me a hunch I was looking at the outside of the rune vault.
To Zot! To, as is normal for me, stop immediately after going in and remember I wanted to buy all the stuff on my shopping list. I also had a fresh round of analysis paralysis over whether I should rework my equipment to be able to use IOOD (which in my experience is ever so effective on OOFs) or maybe even level 8 spells, or just go on in the crystal plate with level 5 spells. I decided to try the latter and see how it panned out, but on reflection this was a false dichotomy; with the ponderhat I could have used level 6 spells and hence have had Iron Shot to pound on OOFs, and maybe with brilliance could have used IOOD with no equipment changes at all.
Zot:1-4 was mostly OK but I had a horrible run-in with a curse toe on Z:4 which tormented me thrice in a row; however, its summons don't see invisible so I could drink invisibility, get behind a wall of summons of my own, and use up some of my large supply of heal wounds.
Z:5 was surprisingly short on the usual unpleasantness with one alich and three orbs of fire; I used a might for each one but one of them gave me berserkitis. This was a bit of a mixed curse - with Wyrmbane and Chei stats and berserk you can beat almost anything flat in no time - but I figured I'd only pass out at the least opportune time, and mutrouletted it out. The orbrun itself was very uneventful - I don't know how much that was good luck, how much Chei - except for two panlords in D, both of whom I just holy worded and meleed.
So, that's done. I'm running out of gods; might have a think about how to do Elyvilon.
Last edited by damerell on Sunday, 24th February 2019, 20:02, edited 1 time in total.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.
