YAVP: 0.23ish 4-rune (with obsidian) BaEn of Vehumet


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Slime Squisher

Posts: 419

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

Post Monday, 6th February 2023, 12:44

YAVP: 0.23ish 4-rune (with obsidian) BaEn of Vehumet

https://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/dam ... 180100.txt

7 dead frogs to bring this one home, which isn't too bad, but I really struggled in the early game - getting one almost to the Lair. Success rate on hexes isn't great even if they're taking the lion's share of XP, and any run of bad rolls leaves me trying to nibble things to death with a dagger or get near enough to the stairs to hop and open a gap.

Not sure what was different this game other than leaning more heavily on Dazzling Spray - the damage is lousy, but early game monsters don't have many hitpoints. I used my starting invisibility on killing Sigmund, learned Beastly Appendage (it would take me a long time to find aux armour), struggled with Dowan and Duvessa on D:5 - found the Temple between Duvessa and Dowan, took Vehumet - but I'd found a book with Sticky Flame and it was coming online, and there's very little at this stage of the game that can't be Sticky Flamed to death if you're robust enough to take a few hits while it burns.

I also learned Sticks to Snakes but didn't use it much - it's a good spell but it's not really part of my mental toolkit - and Yara's, a long-term favourite which is great when orc knights start making stuff strong and so forth.

Got a frost giant ice cave on Lair:1 which got extremely hairy, but I managed to beat it; learned Fireball, which didn't see so much use but comes in handy. I'd then learn Ignition on Lair:6, but it was some time before I could cast it; I memorised it because I knew I'd want it eventually and could cast it with brilliance in a desperate pinch.

Orc was OK except that one of the upstairs on O:2 led to a disjoint chunk of O:1 that was absolutely packed with bastards; I ran away immediately and would only clear it much later when I had Ignition online. O:2 sold me the brooch of Shielding {Ward, rN+ AC+4 EV+4}, a reasonable SInv ring, and a bunch of consumables.

Bailey on D:11 gave me +8 fire dragon scales {+Inv rF++ rC- Slay+3}; now these delayed progress towards high level spells and the rC hole was a bit of a pain, but these were good enough I'd wear them for most of the game before swapping to quicksilver dragon scales (which let me free up a slot I was using for MR) and finally a +3 leather armour with {rElec rCorr MP+9} - this filled my two problematic resistance holes, the MP was obviously nice, and was light enough to cast Fire Storm in.

Swamp seems to have been pretty well controlled - Nikola turned up but I think I just quaffed a resistance; Snake wasn't too bad (and a shop on Snake:1 sold me the fencer's gloves) apart from a Vashnia/Asterion duet on Snake:4. However this did give me a +1 fustibalus with {velocity, rN+ MR+ Int+2 Stlth+} - given that MR was a problem and spells were doing everything pretty well apart from boring single-target damage at range, I'd train this up and use it for that.

Cleared Elf:1-2 but left Elf:3 for a while given my ongoing MR problems, although that just means going to Vaults with bad MR and getting Marked constantly. Learned Bolt of Cold, both for fire-resistant targets and just for the bolt shape. Frederick kindly donated an eveningstar of holy wrath on V:2, and I collected Margery, Sojobo, XTAHUA, and Jory without difficulty.

However, at this point I gave in (as I often do) to the temptation to go straight to V:5 because 1-4 had been fine, and after all I could immolate/Ignition the welcoming committee. This was a mistake (it often is); it's not the welcoming committee, it's who trickles in next that matters. Teleported several times from frying pan to fire, but managed to establish a decent beachhead at last and cleared it.

Elf:3 was next - easy with Ignition, learned Orb of Destruction, and got a book with Blink and a +4 buckler {MR+ Dex+5} which was just what the doctor ordered.

Depths was mostly OK apart from a vault with the sceptre of Torment and three greater mummies. I learned Fire Storm here, but... honestly, this is the second game I've had it and on both occasions I've found it surprisingly underwhelming. Sure, it's a massive AoE, but the tighter the monsters are packed, the better Ignition does; and theoretically (says duvessa's spell guide) the non-fire damage component is enough to deal with single fire-resistant targets and the fire vortices get in the way of OOFs, but in practice IOOD and Iron Shot seem to deal with them just as well. That said, I had a terrible Zot:5 this game, but I don't think Fire Storm helped make it less terrible.

U:4 did have a bazaar with the aforementioned randart leather, which I'd wear from then on, as well as books with Ozo's Armour and Irradiate. Cleared the Vestibule of Hell; got Murray, but he wasn't as much trouble as he can be.

So, which extended rune? For some inexplicable reason I picked Gehenna (I think I still believed this thing about Fire Storm) - sure, I had an extra pip of rF easily available, but being able to swim in Cocytus and set fire to everyone (and make steam) would have been far better.

I nearly lost it on Geh:4 and had to bail out to the Vestibule multiple times overall. Geh:7 had the Serpent of Hell (suspiciously easy) and Asmodeus (very much not easy); I phantom mirrored him but rotten Evo meant the double didn't last long, I Fire Stormed him with disappointing results, and ended up at "blink/hop away, throw IOODs at him, burn consumables like water".

This was bad enough I decided 4 runes was enough and went to Zot, learning Iron Shot for OOFs. The first one I saw went down easily enough, which may have produced a false sense of security; on Zot:5 I killed another outside the lungs, got Abyssed by an ancient lich (but at this stage Abyssment isn't too bad), but then I hopped into a lung blocked by a permanent teleport trap thinking that I could hop out in a bit and kite some stuff over the trap. The hop went further than expected and I found a large collection of OOFs; struggled back to the trap (burning my last scrolls of fog) and teleported myself - to safety, luckily.

Had a go at the other lung, which also went sour in a hurry; teleported in desperation... into the first lung with its OOFs. Fortunately, I was stealthy enough they didn't notice me immediately and I could polish them off one at a time.

Finally cleared a lung and grabbed the Orb. One panlord on the orbrun, but it wasn't immune to being hit with holy wrath.

Much of the trouble here, I think, was that (like Gooncrawl) we gave OOFs a massive stat drain attack to replace Malmutate. I got badly stat drained and so I had terrible spellpower and melee damage as I worked through Z:5.

This seemed like a good idea initially, making them more short-term dangerous but less long-term annoying, and indeed this did present a serious challenge I couldn't deal with by quaffing a few mutations - but if you get badly drained before grabbing the Orb, the Hypothetically Optimal move is probably to go somewhere else and work a bunch of the stat drain off, and this feels bad. Having added a Corrupt Body spell for cacodemons to give temporary malmutations a la wretched stars, I think OOFs will have to change to that.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.
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Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4478

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

Post Tuesday, 7th February 2023, 07:26

Re: YAVP: 0.23ish 4-rune (with obsidian) BaEn of Vehumet

damerell wrote:Much of the trouble here, I think, was that (like Gooncrawl) we gave OOFs a massive stat drain attack to replace Malmutate. I got badly stat drained and so I had terrible spellpower and melee damage as I worked through Z:5.

This seemed like a good idea initially, making them more short-term dangerous but less long-term annoying, and indeed this did present a serious challenge I couldn't deal with by quaffing a few mutations - but if you get badly drained before grabbing the Orb, the Hypothetically Optimal move is probably to go somewhere else and work a bunch of the stat drain off, and this feels bad. Having added a Corrupt Body spell for cacodemons to give temporary malmutations a la wretched stars, I think OOFs will have to change to that.

Note that if you get bad enough temporary mutations, the HO move might still be to go somewhere else and work some of them off. One way to make mutations matter more would be to make potions of mutations rarer. Of course, this would also affect dealing with other mutation-heavy branches, so maybe !mut could be slightly more common in those branches for compensation.
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{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
Bloat: 17: RaRoPrPh{GuStGnCa}{ArEtZoNb}KiPaAnDrBXDBQOApDaMeAGBiOCNKAsFnFlUs{RoBoNeWi

Slime Squisher

Posts: 419

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

Post Tuesday, 7th February 2023, 10:19

Re: YAVP: 0.23ish 4-rune (with obsidian) BaEn of Vehumet

Sprucery wrote:Note that if you get bad enough temporary mutations, the HO move might still be to go somewhere else and work some of them off. One way to make mutations matter more would be to make potions of mutations rarer. Of course, this would also affect dealing with other mutation-heavy branches, so maybe !mut could be slightly more common in those branches for compensation.


Like Gooncrawl we have no permanent malmutate attacks other than Mnoleg, because we hate them (well, more seriously, they're really annoying and not very dangerous, and ideally things in Crawl would be really dangerous but not very annoying), which means purple chunks and potions are more or less something to play with if you feel like it.

These are akin to wretched star temporary mutations, relatively short in (XP-based) duration.

I think the difference is that if OOFs stat drain, you can't fight Z:5 monsters to work off the stat drain, because enough of them will be OOFs that you'll be going backwards (assuming you are having trouble killing OOFs); but if they give temporary mutations, there's a limit to how many of those you can have and they're easier to work off, so you _can_ fight Z:5 monsters to get rid of them again, which means the same oddball incentive to go elsewhere (akin to Pan scumming to work off Hell stat drain in some vanilla releases) doesn't exist.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.

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