YAVP: 5-rune (with Tomb) FDNe of Vehumet


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Slime Squisher

Posts: 419

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

Post Tuesday, 7th March 2023, 17:15

YAVP: 5-rune (with Tomb) FDNe of Vehumet

http://crawl.montres.org.uk/morgue/dame ... 180813.txt

I'm off random combos for a bit; I've won every species and god, but never a necromancer or arcane marskbod. I splatted 3 FDNes of Chei (the first one got Blade Hands which went very well with Cheistats, so I tried it again, but one died of stupidly tackling an oklob, one of flying around Gastronok - both completely unforced errors, sigh) before getting one home - with Vehumet, who's always a solid pick.

Of course in the early game I leaned heavily on Pain, Animate Skeleton, and Animate Dead, but later on I'd amnesia out those Necromancy spells because I was blasting off huge AoEs and didn't want a bunch of friendly undead around for my orbs of destruction to run into. Well before then I was only using Animate Dead intermittently for instant allies in tough fights. Pain was much better once I got Regeneration online so I wasn't going into melee without full HP.

A shadow imp had me at 1 HP twice on D:3, making it comfortably the most effective monster in the game (and another shadow imp got me to 3 HP on D:7); an orc priest also nearly finished me off on D:3. D:3 also had Sigmund but I had an attack of good sense and left him to polish off later. Took Vehumet in the Temple; D:7 got pretty hairy with Dowan, Duvessa, and a feisty orc warrior, and the D:8 Lair entrance had death yaks who again were serious trouble.

After a nasty run-in with Sonja and an eight-headed hydra, things took a turn for the better when I read-IDed a stack of 3 scrolls - acquirement! Boots of running, yes please, and a book with Ozo's Armour. Pleasing to get both of these at once - the boots cancelled out the move delay from Ozo's Armour, leaving me normal speed with it up.

Working down the Lair I learned Throw Icicle, which I'd use a bit but soon had more effective alternatives; Meph Cloud, which is a good spell I usually forget I have, so I didn't get much use out of it; and Lightning Bolt, which is certainly effective but also ridiculously loud, getting me into serious trouble in a few places, especially Shoals.

Lair done, D:9 had a stone giant - bit harsh - and a randart +9 falchion with {vamp, rN+ Int+2}. This was obviously worth holding for the Int alone, but was good enough to start training Long Blades. Worked down D - killed Kirke, learned Yara's, found Orc. O:1 had an ice cave which luckily was easy to get to and gave a randart ring with {Wiz rN+++ Dex+5 SInv *Curse} - "oh no, *Curse", I said, putting it on and never taking it off.

I learned Irradiate on O:2 but Stoat Soup has the bcrawlism that casting it gives you Sap Magic to stop you spamming it. This is a very effective brake on it - much better than vanilla's endless tweaks - and I'd amnesia it out after a while because while it's effective, the downside is so major. I've used new Irradiate on other characters and it's OK, but it's not really suitable for someone who wants to be casting spells all the time with Veh's MP topups and FD MP cost reduction.

Orc and D done, to Snake, learning OTR; Snake:3 got pretty bad (I had no rElec for shock serpents and of course Lightning Bolt is not very effective on them, but also Vashnia and her pack were giving me serious grief) so I went to Shoals. This was a mistake - the log does not reflect just how bad it got, because as soon as you cast Lightning Bolt on a Shoals map, the world and their seadog descends on you.

Back to Snake, dealing with Vashnia after a bit of though (I think with evocables, but I don't now remember for sure). Snake:4 had Agnes (but I poisoned her with OTR and she ran out of HP before I did) and also the first serious problem with necromancy; salamander firebrands can summon flaming clouds around things they hit in melee, which restricts your manuever if it happens to you but is a bit more unpleasant when it happens to a zombie you are standing next to. Other than that it wasn't too bad; I made enough noise outside the room of bastards that most of them trickled out to investigate.

Back to Shoals, just with more HP and magic and a resolution not to cast Lightning Bolt at anything unless I was absolutely desperate, just OTR things to wear them down. (Veh had offered me Fireball, but I hadn't taken it. Not sure why not, it would have been ideal for boiling merfolk and Veh offers don't expire in Stoat Soup). On Shoals:3 I'd learn Olgreb's Perfected Radiance, which works like OTR but first attempts as a hex to give everything in view poison vulnerability; it's also got a higher spellpower cap. It's a level 7 spell - I don't know that it's worth it if you don't have FD aptitudes and Veh giving you MP, but it seemed pretty good for this character and I'd amnesia out OTR later, mostly to recover the spell slots.

To Elf, to be greeted with a welcoming committee including a big dancing weapon I wasn't really set up to kill. I left and went to Vaults, learning Ignition and finding a randart scarf with {Spirit, Str+2} which I'd use for a while. V:4 had Saint Roka and Margery (both easy) and an amulet with {RegenMP Str+4}; in spite of my weedy necromancer arms I was getting respectable Str and I'd eventually swap out the falchion for a demon blade, valuing more melee damage over 2 points of Int.

Poked my nose into Depths but it looked pretty horrible; I had Ignition online, which is usually a free pass on TRJ, so went to Slime and collected it - learned Blink and found a ring with {rCorr rC+ MR+ Int+3} which, well, it would have been nicer to find it at the top of Slime but I wasn't complaining.

To Crypt (of course I had rN+++); Bai Suzhen was easy, Sojobo nasty enough I went and bought a phantom mirror (but killed him without needing it), Khufu himself easy but his three greater mummy friends very much not. Then to V:5, learning Iskenderun's Undoing (a Gooncrawlism; level 9 Conjurations, fires eight orbs of destruction, one in each direction but nominally targetted on one unfortunate victim - the victim usually dies, there's often a lot of collateral damage, but it's not very reliable and it's almost always absurdly noisy because some of the orbs collide almost every time). V:5 wasn't a problem with Ignition to clear the welcoming committee; got some randarts but nothing amazing.

To Elf. Desolation of Salt on E:2 wasn't a serious problem; learned Insulation, got a ring with {rF+ MR+ Int+4 Dex-3} which was nice to have. I learned LCS on E:3 - in the past I've not got much out of it, but here (perhaps because of high spellpower) it fulfilled its promise of being a bigger nastier Iron Shot. I'd cast it liberally at OOFs, ancient lichen, Orb Guardians, etc.

Now I could easily clear Depths. I learned Ring of Flames but immediately amnesiaed it out - I'd forgotten it was rC-- and I had no good way to deal with that (I was expecting rC-). I replaced it with Statue Form. Now, Statue Form isn't amazing on FD - you lose the FD benefits (MP discount, AC and SH from scales), you're probably mostly casting spells which is just slow - but worse than Statue Form is looking at a screenful of greater mummies and _not_ being in Statue Form. (I think I found Necromutation late enough in the game that it wasn't a sensible option, and besides, who wants not to be able to quaff magic and spam more spells?)

I wanted an extended rune. Where should it be? Well, I'd already killed three greater mummies and Khufu, how bad could Tomb be?

I cleared the Tomb:2 ambush with a combination of Ignition and Isk's Undoing. I was ready to teleport away but it didn't get too bad. The corridor of greater mummies on Tomb:1 was painful, but not as bad as it can be. Tomb:3 got extremely hairy at one point (HP 33/256 from a reaper) but I had enough blink scrolls (and haste/might/agility/brilliance) to keep bouncing across to the upstairs while killing what I could each trip, and eventually the mummies stopped coming.

I leaned heavily on Ignition here in its Aura Of Murderjuration role, but it wasn't great - even in a packed crowd, greater mummies are such giant sacks of HP that Ignition only wears them down slowly. I had neither Fire Storm or Shatter available, either of which would have been an improvement. W:3 gave me the cloak of Starlight which neatly fixed my rElec problem with a bit of jewellery rearrangement for other resistances.

To Zot (buying all the consumables I could, albeit I only had Evo 12 this game so didn't make heavy use of them). Two orbs of fire on Zot:1 but they went down pretty quickly to LCS. I learned Haunt just because I had the spell slots and it would provide another alternative, but it turned out I didn't need an alternative to blowing things up with Conjurations. Z:5 had a _lot_ of orbs of fire and ancient lichen and things got pretty bad at one point; the orbrun had four panlords, one of which I evaded and three of which I exploded.

What's next? Arcane Marksbod, starting with High Elves. I have already splatted one to put me on a cheeky no-streak.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.
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Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4478

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

Post Wednesday, 8th March 2023, 08:36

Re: YAVP: 5-rune (with Tomb) FDNe of Vehumet

damerell wrote:one of flying around Gastronok
So Airstrike still does more damage against flying creatures? Have you considered changing that to "bonus damage based on the number of empty spaces next to the target" like vanilla?

I learned Irradiate on O:2 but Stoat Soup has the bcrawlism that casting it gives you Sap Magic to stop you spamming it.
I'm too scared of contamination to cast it more than twice in a row in vanilla anyway...

Iskenderun's Undoing (a Gooncrawlism; level 9 Conjurations, fires eight orbs of destruction, one in each direction but nominally targetted on one unfortunate victim
That sounds like a fun spell to have.
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 Wednesday, 8th March 2023, 10:57

Re: YAVP: 5-rune (with Tomb) FDNe of Vehumet

Sprucery wrote:
damerell wrote:one of flying around Gastronok
So Airstrike still does more damage against flying creatures? Have you considered changing that to "bonus damage based on the number of empty spaces next to the target" like vanilla?

We'll consider positional magic when we get to it, basically - it's been a long time since I was really trying to work through vanilla commits systematically. I did 0.22 in about a week when 0.23 seemed imminent, started on 0.23 when 0.24 seemed imminent expecting that to take a week, got up to "Lower the average number of charges for some wand types" (which was after removing wand identification, stopped and implemented wand stacking plus identification, thought I'd pick it up again soon, and then there was a global pandemic. You'd think that would make it easier to get programming done but it didn't, and since then while we've brought forward individual vanilla features like new acquirement, I've gone no further in systematically considering commits.

On the face of it, though, I don't see what's wrong with Airstrike doing more damage to flying creatures.

I learned Irradiate on O:2 but Stoat Soup has the bcrawlism that casting it gives you Sap Magic to stop you spamming it.
I'm too scared of contamination to cast it more than twice in a row in vanilla anyway...

Vanilla upped the Contam as part of their attempt to control it. You can get three casts in quite easily with the old levels of Contam - but now, only if your spell failure chances permit you to after the first two casts.

Iskenderun's Undoing (a Gooncrawlism; level 9 Conjurations, fires eight orbs of destruction, one in each direction but nominally targetted on one unfortunate victim
That sounds like a fun spell to have.


It's hilarious fun - and not, I think, particularly overpowered for a level nine spell.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.

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