The Tavern

I love mountain dwarves. I love them so much, I decided to learn the bastard species that took their place. And now I love octopuses. They're so awesome it almost makes up for the loss of my beloved Md. Constrict a bat for the first time and you'll feel it too. It's a warm feeling in your pants that can't wear armor besides a cap...

When I first saw the info for octopodes, I thought "woo! +20/+40 slaying with a quickblade! Who needs spells or defense?" That's the (bad) theory at least. So I'm going for a non-casting Octopode win.

Several dozen dead cephalopods later, I've got a winnable game cooking. It actually feels a lot like KoBe's, except with picking up the fruit. I've done lair, orc, and snake 1-4. On rings I've got 9/6 slaying total now, and a handful of neat resists. I got relec on a ring, which was a worry of mine for the late game. Trog summon spam has saved my ass a dozen times. Okawaru would be useful for the hat/shield gifts, but the summons are required for survival. Death yaks don't like octopuses...

I'm looking for input and discussion on stupid octopuses. Here are a few specific thoughts/questions:

- Large shields? Assume max shield skill, I can picture choosing between medium shield with a resist and large without.
- Go for 5+ runes, or grab 3 and call it a day? The mighty OcBe may hit a wall when its offense can't overcome the minimal defense. But I won't know the limit till I hit it, so how far would you press an OcBe?
- God swap? Trog will drop off once the summons die in 1 round and I've already got enough anti-magic flails. I'm thinking TSO if I'm going to sniff at over 3 runes, because I will be tight on resists.
- I got NINE shops on orc5... ZERO jewelry shops. I guess there's no best bet to gathering rings, but any thoughts on maximizing chances? I'm saving acquirement scrolls until I've identified most/all jewelry.

And of course I'll get 2 shotted by a dragon or something, so this is likely all moot. But until then, WOO OCBE !
(I had a +1 cap that got acid'd)

Nice. My son's most successful character to date is an OcBe. He thinks they're underrated for melee, and I think he might be right. Constriction is def fun.

Of course, I've just splatted about a dozen OcCjs in a row. They're hard to get off the ground.

Me, I'd probably just go for the 3 runer. Maybe I'll feel bolder if I get one rolling a little bit.

I've scored a 5 rune run with berserkers before, so it's probably doable with octopodes.

I wouldn't switch gods if that's all you're going for. If you DO want to try for an all-runer, TSO is what lots of players go with (and TSO's summons are even better for the endgame). Just be warned that Trog's wrath can be harsh. A berserk stone giant or titan is no joke, especially if you're in the middle of recovering from some other massive fight, and you won't be able to outrun them at normal speed. Keep plenty of blink/teleport scrolls handy, just in case.

As for jewelry, I see you haven't cleared the Vaults or Elf Hall yet. Those can have shops, and the treasure vaults at the bottom of both branches often have at least a few pieces of jewelry. You also haven't finished the main dungeon, so there might be some more shops to come. There's usually jewelry in the Slime Pit vault, too, but it's going to be a while before your character is ready to take on THAT challenge. Other than scumming Pandemonium or the Abyss (not recommendable), I'm not sure what else you can do right now to find jewelry.

Woo! I cleared elf to 4 and vaults to 7, finding lots of shops but zero jewelry shops or noteworthy rings. But I got a treasure trove on like elf3 with 8 speed potions as the cost. It was a jewelry vault!

Best thing in it was (Hunger- rC+ rN+ MR), which is nice. But no damage Mostly it let me identify like 8 more jewelry pieces so one day I can go for acquirement.


It seems like artifact rings can really dump on stats more than artifact armor. Plus the ability to mix and match without being locked into a slot allows you to use "lesser" artifact rings, instead of the best. And with like 30 evade and 30 shield, I'm not missing AC... yet.

I just five runed (Shoals, Swamp, Vaults, Tomb, Slime) an OcFi of Kiku. This was mainly a melee build (pain trident + shield), with necro spells (and skill) just to provide punch to the pain trident and zombies/abominations for support, meatshields and escape. Like you, I didn't really notice the low AC fighting one-on-one with a big shield skill. The ring drops were ok, had lots of slaying, but only basic resists covered. Still, had no trouble with Zot 5. I found this build much, much easier than caster OCs that have I tried.

It's strangely powerful. Either AC is that bad, or evasion is that good. Armorless doesn't feel squishy at all... I makes me rethink melee builds in general.

Actually yeah, I noticed that running with a large shield wielding lightly armoured MiMo (had around 60 SH and 30+ EV). He was barely taking damage in late dungeon and Vaults:8 in contrast to my heavily armoured characters. Evasion on its own is VERY fickle though, I believe. I've had a run with a Phase Shifting Spriggan with the ring of Shaolin (over 60 EV) where I still were getting my ass handed to me in melee. A mix of defensive stats is always the best way to go, I think.

One change I've noticed is that snake5 is a BITCH with nagas having constrict.

It's really rough on Octpocraps because it goes past evade and shield, and the zero ac makes it deal straight damage. I could take on a dozen nagas at once, and 90% of the damage was coming from one constrict. I had to teleport out, and elf5 seems easier.

had some fun with OcBe too. But if you get a strong character running, the only rings you`ll find `till Lair:8 are controlled flight and hunger, obviously...