YASD VpAs. Why do kobolds keep hydras in their farms?

[Steel Neuron]

Okay, here goes the character I have made the most progress with (not much, but I have been playing for a couple days heh)

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.11.0 (tiles) character file.

3025 Arthem the Ducker (level 9, -6/62 HPs)
             Began as a Vampire Assassin on Jan 9, 2013.
             Was a Believer of Yredelemnul.
             Mangled by a four-headed hydra (11 damage)
             ... on Level 9 of the Dungeon.
             The game lasted 00:58:11 (11906 turns).

Arthem the Ducker (Vampire Assassin)               Turns: 11906, Time: 00:58:11

HP  -6/62        AC  0     Str  5      XL: 9   Next: 28%
MP   9/11        EV 30     Int 13      God: Yredelemnul [**....]
Gold 363         SH  0     Dex 23      Spells:  0 memorised,  8 levels left

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : +   y - melded -1,+0 short sword "Kekhlue" {venom, *Rage
Res.Cold  : . . .   Warding    : .   (armour currently unavailable)
Life Prot.: + . .   Conserve   : .   (shield currently unavailable)
Res.Poison: .       Res.Corr.  : .   h - melded +0 helmet
Res.Elec. : .       Clarity    : .   d - melded +0 cloak
Sust.Abil.: . .     Spirit.Shd : .   (gloves currently unavailable)
Res.Mut.  : .       Stasis     : +   t - melded +0 pair of boots
Res.Rott. : .       Ctrl.Telep.: .   g - amulet of stasis
Saprovore : . . .   Levitation : +   (ring currently unavailable)
                    Ctrl.Flight: +   o - melded ring of magical power

@: bat-form, invisible, flying, very slightly contaminated, very quick, somewhat
resistant to hostile enchantments, extremely stealthy
A: bottle blood, (fangs 0), see invisible, (unbreathing)
a: Bottle Blood, End Transformation, Animate Remains, Recall Undead Slaves,
Injury Mirror, Renounce Religion


You were on level 9 of the Dungeon.
You worshipped Yredelemnul.
Yredelemnul was most pleased with you.
You were not thirsty.

You were in vampire bat-form.

You visited 2 branches of the dungeon, and saw 9 of its levels.

You collected 313 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 b - a +0 blowgun
 v - a +1,+1 orcish dagger of venom
 w - a +2,+0 dagger of electrocution
 x - a +1,+1 short sword of flaming
 y - the -1,+0 short sword "Kekhlue" (melded) {venom, *Rage Dex+4}
   (You found it on level 6 of the Dungeon)   
   
   It poisons the flesh of those it strikes.
   
   It affects your dexterity (+4).
   It makes you angry.
Missiles
 e - 26 poisoned needles
 f - 2 curare-tipped needles
 u - a throwing net (quivered)
Armour
 c - a +0 robe
 d - a +0 cloak (melded)
 h - a +0 helmet (melded)
 i - a -1 orcish leather armour
 t - a +0 pair of boots (melded)
Magical devices
 k - a wand of flame (17)
 p - a wand of fireball (2)
 q - a wand of invisibility (0)
Scrolls
 m - a scroll of enchant armour
 s - a scroll of silence {unknown}
Jewellery
 a - an uncursed ring of sustenance {unknown}
 g - an amulet of stasis (around neck)
 o - a ring of magical power (melded)
Potions
 j - a potion of restore abilities
 l - 3 potions of blood
 n - a potion of curing
 r - a potion of magic


   Skills:
 + Level 3.2 Fighting
 + Level 5.9 Short Blades
 + Level 1.9 Throwing
 + Level 0.3 Armour
 + Level 7.9 Dodging
 + Level 7.7 Stealth
 + Level 6.2 Stabbing
 + Level 1.1 Traps & Doors
 + Level 1.9 Invocations
 + Level 1.3 Evocations


You had 8 spell levels left.
You didn't know any spells.

Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations

Branches:
Dungeon (9/27)             Temple (1/1) D:6         
   Orc: D:6-11        Lair: D:8-13     

Altars:
Ashenzari
Cheibriados
Elyvilon
Fedhas
Kikubaaqudgha
Makhleb
Nemelex Xobeh
Okawaru
Trog
Vehumet
Xom
Yredelemnul
Lugonu

Portals:
Bailey: D:7


Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You can bottle blood from corpses.
((You have razor-sharp teeth.))*
You have supernaturally acute eyesight.
((You can survive without breathing.))*


Message History

The four-headed hydra barely misses you.
The four-headed hydra misses you.
The four-headed hydra completely misses you.
The four-headed hydra misses you.
You enter the shallow water.
Moving in this stuff is going to be slow.
...and don't expect to remain undetected.
Use which ability? (? or * to list)
You turn into a vampire bat.
The -1,+0 short sword "Kekhlue" {venom, *Rage Dex+4} melds into your body.
You feel clumsy.
The -1,+0 short sword "Kekhlue" {venom, *Rage Dex+4} stops dripping with poison.
Your +0 cloak melds into your body. Your +0 helmet melds into your body.
Your +0 pair of boots melds into your body.
Your ring of magical power melds into your body.
You feel your mana capacity decrease.
The four-headed hydra completely misses you.
The four-headed hydra bites you!
You die...
Yredelemnul claims you as an undead slave.

##.........................
 ##.........................
  ##........................
   ##....##########.........
    ##...#%%...'%.#..........
     ##..#.....#%)#..........
      ##.##'''###+#..........
       ###.%%.%P˜.#[.........
         #%%P..˜˜P#..........
         #.....P˜˜#..........
         #......˜P##.########
         #.˜.D.˜PP##.#
         ####b######.#
            #.)......#
            ##########


You could see a four-headed hydra.

Vanquished Creatures
  2 yaks (D:9)
  A hippogriff (D:5)
  8 ogres
  An ice beast (D:9)
  2 centaurs
  Duvessa (D:6)
  3 big kobolds (D:9)
  2 orc wizards
  5 crimson imps
  A hound (D:9)
  Dowan (D:6)
  Crazy Yiuf (D:3)
  2 iguanas (D:5)
  A worker ant (D:9)
  A jelly (D:6)
  2 sheep (D:9)
  Ijyb (D:5)
  7 adders
  7 gnolls
  An iguana skeleton (D:9)
  An iguana zombie (D:6)
  An adder zombie (D:6)
  2 giant mites
  2 worms
  A bat skeleton (D:4)
  2 giant geckos (D:5)
  An ooze (D:6)
  16 orcs
  3 giant cockroaches (D:4)
  15 hobgoblins
  3 jackals (D:6)
  13 kobolds
  A quokka (D:7)
  2 ball pythons
  7 bats
  14 giant newts
  14 goblins
  A quokka zombie (D:6)
  10 rats
  A toadstool (D:6)
160 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (collateral kills)
  A giant frog (D:6)
  A hound (D:5)
  An orc wizard (D:6)
  A worker ant zombie (D:5)
  A jelly (D:5)
  4 gnolls (D:5)
  A giant eyeball (D:5)
  2 hobgoblins
  A quokka skeleton (D:6)
13 creatures vanquished.

Vanquished Creatures (others)
  2 humans (D:5)
  A yak (D:5)
  3 dwarves (D:5)
  A centaur zombie (D:5)
  2 ogre zombies (D:6)
  A hound skeleton (D:6)
  2 halflings (D:5)
  A goliath beetle zombie (D:5)
  2 orcs (D:6)
  A goblin (D:5)
  A kobold (D:5)
  3 toadstools
20 creatures vanquished.

Grand Total: 193 creatures vanquished

Notes
Turn   | Place    | Note
--------------------------------------------------------------
     0 | D:1      | Arthem, the Vampire Assassin, began the quest for the Orb.
     0 | D:1      | Reached XP level 1. HP: 15/15 MP: 1/1
     1 | D:1      | Noticed an elf zombie
     5 | D:1      | Noticed a human zombie
     7 | D:1      | Noticed an ogre zombie
    12 | D:1      | Noticed a centaur zombie
    16 | D:1      | Noticed a merfolk zombie
    16 | D:1      | Noticed an elf zombie
    18 | D:1      | Noticed a merfolk zombie
    18 | D:1      | Noticed a merfolk zombie
   522 | D:1      | Reached XP level 2. HP: 21/21 MP: 2/2
   972 | D:2      | Reached skill level 5 in Stealth
   972 | D:2      | Reached XP level 3. HP: 9/26 MP: 3/3
  2064 | D:3      | Noticed Crazy Yiuf
  2301 | D:3      | Reached XP level 4. HP: 20/33 MP: 4/4
  2851 | D:3      | Found a basalt altar of Yredelemnul.
  3032 | D:3      | Became a worshipper of Yredelemnul the Dark
  3974 | D:4      | Reached XP level 5. HP: 29/38 MP: 5/5
  4294 | D:4      | Noticed an ogre
  4301 | D:4      | Killed an ogre
  4360 | D:4      | Found a blossoming altar of Fedhas.
  4549 | D:4      | Noticed an ogre
  4863 | D:5      | Entered Level 5 of the Dungeon
  4868 | D:5      | Reached XP level 6. HP: 44/44 MP: 6/6
  5137 | D:5      | Found an ancient bone altar of Kikubaaqudgha.
  5140 | D:5      | Found a burning altar of Makhleb.
  5141 | D:5      | Noticed a human
  5143 | D:5      | Killed a human
  5567 | D:5      | Noticed an ogre
  5750 | D:5      | Killed an ogre
  5750 | D:5      | Reached skill level 6 in Stealth
  5826 | D:5      | Acquired Yredelemnul's first power
  5844 | D:5      | Noticed a yak
  5857 | D:5      | Killed a yak
  5857 | D:5      | Reached XP level 7. HP: 34/50 MP: 7/7
  5872 | D:5      | Reached skill level 5 in Dodging
  6045 | D:5      | Noticed Ijyb
  6045 | D:5      | Noticed an ogre
  6054 | D:5      | Noticed a hippogriff
  6068 | D:5      | Killed Ijyb
  6096 | D:5      | Killed an ogre
  6096 | D:5      | Reached skill level 5 in Stabbing
  6223 | D:5      | Killed a hippogriff
  7033 | D:5      | Found a shattered altar of Ashenzari.
  7177 | D:6      | Noticed Dowan
  7178 | D:6      | Noticed Duvessa
  7213 | D:6      | Reached skill level 1 in Invocations
  7213 | D:6      | Reached XP level 8. HP: 25/56 MP: 9/9
  7578 | D:6      | Found a sparkling altar of Nemelex Xobeh.
  7887 | D:6      | Reached skill level 5 in Short Blades
  8445 | D:6      | Reached skill level 1 in Evocations
  8536 | D:6      | Got a polished short sword
  8537 | D:6      | Identified the cursed short sword "Kekhlue" {venom, *Rage Dex+4} (You found it on level 6 of the Dungeon)
  8687 | D:6      | Killed Duvessa
  8913 | D:6      | Killed Dowan
  8955 | D:6      | Reached skill level 7 in Stealth
  9315 | D:6      | Found a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple.
  9324 | Temple   | Entered the Ecumenical Temple
 10355 | D:3      | Killed Crazy Yiuf
 10502 | D:7      | Found a white marble altar of Elyvilon.
 10502 | D:7      | Noticed an angel
 10718 | D:7      | Found a flagged portal.
 10787 | D:7      | Acquired Yredelemnul's second power
 10796 | D:7      | You fall through a shaft!
 11045 | D:9      | Reached XP level 9. HP: 34/62 MP: 11/11
 11436 | D:9      | Reached skill level 1 in Traps & Doors
 11887 | D:9      | Noticed a two-headed hydra
 11906 | D:9      | Mangled by a four-headed hydra


Hilarious death by the way. I stumbled into what appeared to be a kobold farm, complete with sheep, yaks and grass (I didn't know the game could spawn things so unusual). There was one last door to explore, so I cracked it open and... Surprise! Two kobolds and one hungry hydra. It bit my head off just as I was trying to bat the hell out of there.

I'm a bit sad to lose him, specially because of the sword. Venom and +4 Dex are awesome considering Rage doesnt affect me.

So, any suggestions based on my gear and abilities? I'm liking VpAs a lot and I'd like to keep working on it. His religion was a bit of an experiment and I found that zombies arent precisely stealthy, so I'll steer clear of summoning gods.

[rebthor]

You shouldn't have moved into the water. Besides slowing you, it gave the hydra your exact location.

Without running through the numbers I can't be sure, but I don't the the +4 Dex was worth more than just using the dagger of electrocution you had for everything.

[Lasty]

You shouldn't have moved into the water. Besides slowing you, it gave the hydra your exact location.

He was also flying -- that should prevent water from giving him away.

[rebthor]

He evoked bat form after giving his position away.

  Code:

You enter the shallow water.
Moving in this stuff is going to be slow.
...and don't expect to remain undetected.
Use which ability? (? or * to list)
You turn into a vampire bat.

And from the bot:

Monsters can guess your position when you are invisible if they knew your position before and you are still within two spaces, if you are in water, or if they are adjacent to you and make a roll based on their intelligence (usually 1 chance in 3; slightly higher if they are smarter.)

So, I don't know if it actually gave his position away. It depends on if he broke LOS at any point before he went into the water. Probably not, but even so, it's not a habit that I'd recommend getting into.

Edit: One more thing he should have done upon seeing that hydra at the very beginning was to use injury mirror. It would have killed the hydra before it could kill him.

[KoboldLord]

The hydra only had two heads when you found it, and one of the kobolds was holding a short sword of flaming. The fact that it had four heads when it killed you is really nobody's fault but your own.

It's a riff off the old story from tabletop D&D wherein the players manage to catch a hydra, and rather than killing it they chain it up and carefully chop off heads to feed their small army of henchmen with. If it currently has two heads, they chop one off and let two grow. If it currently has three heads, they chop one off and cauterize the stump so no more grow. Infinite hydra-burger to feed to the dependent NPCs.

[Steel Neuron]

The hydra only had two heads when you found it, and one of the kobolds was holding a short sword of flaming. The fact that it had four heads when it killed you is really nobody's fault but your own.

It's a riff off the old story from tabletop D&D wherein the players manage to catch a hydra, and rather than killing it they chain it up and carefully chop off heads to feed their small army of henchmen with. If it currently has two heads, they chop one off and let two grow. If it currently has three heads, they chop one off and cauterize the stump so no more grow. Infinite hydra-burger to feed to the dependent NPCs.

Yes, I never said it wasn't my fault =P, that's what hooks me to Crawl, it seems every death is an avoidable consequence of my lack of knowledge, and I love that!

There are many things I should have done. For starters, I thought that I was wearing a dagger and that it somehow would deal piercing rather than slashing damage, and I didn't pay attention to the heads in the log. I tried to run in human form into the water before casting bat... That was a terrible order in which to do things. Also, what you said about the fire sword! So many variables... I have to play more =)

[KoboldLord]

If it's any comfort, this particular vault will probably never kill you again. I have a good laugh every time I see it, and then head in to pick up my free hydra jerky.