YAVP:5-rune (with demonic) KoAs of Ihp'ix


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Slime Squisher

Posts: 419

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

Post Wednesday, 14th December 2022, 15:50

YAVP:5-rune (with demonic) KoAs of Ihp'ix

http://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/dame ... 082900.txt

Who's Ihp'ix? Ihp'ix is our attempt at an archery god that doesn't gift ammo or stop it mulching or provide powers that look too much like Heroism/Finesse in a funny hat.

We had the idea three years ago but then there was a global pandemic, etc, and to a degree it's been overtaken by vanilla Crawl making ammo go away altogether but making the numbers on launchers worse. Oh, well. Also, if we'd known Ignis was coming and Pakellas was not coming back, we'd probably have used a name beginning with a P.

Details below.

Finally, a kobold with severely reduced LOS radius probably wasn't the character to take a ranged combat god on, but that's what the RNG handed me and I was intent on testing the god even if meant hanging on for the Temple. I'd splatted a DsGl to Mennas in V:5 already, but this was my first game with the god feature-complete.

Harold was the best performing monster this game, having me at HP: 1/65 on D:8, but the horde of yaks on D:5 was pretty harsh too; I had to poison-dart them and pick them apart one by one. Fortunately, I was not at that point divinely forbidden from throwing them.

Hit the Lair on D:10 with an ice cave where I nearly got collected by a frost giant - I'd grab the stuff and run away, never killing the giant. Lair:4 had a volcano which was pretty undramatic (weird, it's usually volcanoes which are horrible).

I'd leave Lair:6 unfinished - very nasty - and go to Orc, which wasn't too bad apart from getting one of the demon-laden endings again. Finished Lair and Dungeon, finding a +4 shadow dragon scales trove; I'd save the scrolls, which naturally ensured none of them dropped scales until halfway through Zot.

To Spider, to be immediately Abyssed by a Louise-Frances tag team. This got extremely hairy but I spammed Piercing Fire at a horde of monsters (mostly starcursed masses spreading), escaped, and decided maybe on reflection I'd do Swamp first.

Swamp wasn't too bad, and I hit ******, using Superior Divine Weapon to get a +9 fustibalus of velocity. (This isn't a no-brainer; piety gain is lower with a divine weapon, so you're better off working with your own weapon if you can.)

Back to Spider to polish off Frances, Louise, and their best friend Roxanne. Spider:4 was pretty bad with ghost moths being the usual bloody nuisance.

To Elf next. I often do Elf at this stage in spite of it so rarely turning out be a good idea, and this was pretty typical, surviving the Elf:3 room of bastards more by luck than judgement.

To Vaults, hitting a Desolation on V:3 which also got extremely hairy but served up randart steam dragon scales I'd use for most of the rest of the game (especially for Slime since they were one of a handful of rCorr items) and boots of running, mostly running away.

To Depths, getting Abyssed by a lich (much less alarming, but I think that's partly because I said haha no to the rune vault I saw). Then to Slime, relatively straightforward and giving me a randart hand crossbow with rN+ (handy since I had no good source of rN).

V:5 wasn't too bad, then where was my extended rune to come from? I fancied a go at Pan, greeted with "3 hellions, a soul eater, 2 sun demons, a pandemonium lord and an infernal demonspawn come into view", oh dear, with me slap bang in the middle. Fortunately hellions don't see invisible and I survived that.

Next Pan level? Holy Pan; I could relatively easily kill a corroded daeva, so this became an exercise in wondering if they'd run out of daevas before I ran out of acid charges (I escaped with 1 left) or sling bullets (sportingly, they had left some extras lying around). I had to teleport away from the seraph once, but phantom mirroring it sorted it out, and I had a demonic rune for the collection.

To Zot! Cracked into the trove, some decent stuff. Nearly collected by an annoyingly resilient curse toe on Zot:3 (there's that terrible rN at work again). The Zot:5 lung got pretty bad, but I'd brought plenty of Evo and boxes of beasts and this was the time for an instant army. I got Abyssed on the way out just for old time's sake, but then dodged one panlord and made it out.

My big mistake this game was dumping a bunch of XP into spells I'd use once or twice with brilliance. If the game had gone on a rune or two more I'd have seen some real benefit there, but after the difficulties of Holy Pan I'd had enough. If I'd just have slapped on heavy armour and put that XP into Evo I'd probably have been better off, and maybe able to ditch the shield and use bigger launchers.

How's the god? It does what it says on the tin; I could use ranged combat for primary offence basically all game. Piercing Fire's excellent for clearing out groups, ranged Infusion makes your attacks a bit nastier if you've got nothing else to spend MP on, the three-way crosstrain made it practical to use a fusti and a crossbow, and the divine weapon abilities mean you've normally got a respectable weapon to hand for the stage in the game you're at.


Ihp'ix is the god of archers and, after months of debate and prayer at the Trifold Laitian Council a millenium ago, those who wield slings. When an arrow hits the bullseye or a hundred longbows spread death on a battlefield, when a shepherd defends a flock from wolves or when an assassin's bolt slays, Ihp'ix is there.


As worshippers of Ihp'ix gain skill with a bow, crossbow, or sling, they gain skill with the other weapons at an increased rate. Worshippers need never carry ammunition; Ihp'ix gathers it up into a vast divine armoury, then places it in worshippers' hands as it is needed. Especially devout worshippers will find Ihp'ix will even gather up shots their foes are about to fire and suppress their foes' magical defences.

Worshippers may infuse their shots with magical energy, temporarily make use of weapons from the divine armoury, and call upon Ihp'ix to have their shots pierce their opponents and spare their allies.

Ihp'ix likes it when you kill living beings, you destroy the undead, you kill demons, you kill holy beings and you destroy nonliving beings. Ihp'ix is better pleased when you strike down your enemies with ranged weapons.

Ihp'ix's powers are improved by the Invocations skill and piety.


Naturally, the use of ammunition and weapons from the divine armoury is reserved for those who have not strayed.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.
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Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4478

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

Post Friday, 16th December 2022, 11:22

Re: YAVP:5-rune (with demonic) KoAs of Ihp'ix

Did you wear that -Tele amulet as default? I'm always so scared of -Tele that I probably never have it on a non-Formicid.

Ranged combat in vanilla has become a no-brainer, imo. With no ammo and only one skill for launchers, I always pick up the first launcher I find and start training ranged combat (unless I have spells for ranged of course).
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
Bloat: 17: RaRoPrPh{GuStGnCa}{ArEtZoNb}KiPaAnDrBXDBQOApDaMeAGBiOCNKAsFnFlUs{RoBoNeWi

Slime Squisher

Posts: 419

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

Post Friday, 16th December 2022, 19:55

Re: YAVP:5-rune (with demonic) KoAs of Ihp'ix

Sprucery wrote:Did you wear that -Tele amulet as default? I'm always so scared of -Tele that I probably never have it on a non-Formicid.


I wore it in Zot - I was out of blink scrolls, a teleport's kind of a desperation move on a Zot level that isn't mostly clear (in particular, it always seems to land me in the other lung on Zot:5), and amulets are still fast to swap in Stoat Soup so I could have taken it off.

Ranged combat in vanilla has become a no-brainer, imo. With no ammo and only one skill for launchers, I always pick up the first launcher I find and start training ranged combat (unless I have spells for ranged of course).


Mm. I gather from IRC conversations the downside is that it just isn't very good - like picking up all the stones you see and throwing them at monsters closing to melee when you don't have any better ideas - so although everyone can use it, no-one wants it as their primary offence.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.

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