TAB Challenge

[Fungus]

Not sure if this has come up before, but I'm curious to see if it's possible to win the game with the following rule:

If an enemy is in sight, you MUST press TAB until all enemies are dead (i.e. "No target in view!")

That means you can't:

-Invoke during combat
-Use consumables (wands/potions/scrolls/rods) during combat
-Use combat spells
-Walk backwards, order summons, dig murders holes...
-Or be generally strategic in your melee.

Also you probably couldn't use ranged since you'd do stupid things like whacking with a bow once you're out of arrows.

You may press Y to confirm a prompt.

You'd use 'autofight_stop = 0' in your rc file.

Anyone think this is possible? If so, what combo?

My guess is that if anyone could do it, it would be Gargoyle Monk of Makhleb.

Gargoyle for insane AC
Monk for piety boost, starting Dex and nice scaling combat output.
Makhleb for passive healing in fights.

Forget about training Invocations and put it all in Unarmed/Dodging/Fighting/Armour, maybe Stealth? Or Shields?

Thoughts?

[TheDefiniteArticle]

[20:01] <thedefinite> !hs braverobin
[20:01] <Sequell> 800. braverobin the Invulnerable (L25 DDFi of Makhleb), blasted by an ancient lich (crystal spear) on Zot:5 (hall_of_Zot) on 2014-01-13 18:20:53, with 562883 points after 55289 turns and 2:23:02.

DD is better than Gargoyle at everything, and pressing Tab is no exception.

[Fungus]

Ah, but did he win?

Is LCS damage affected by AC?

[Patashu]

Is LCS damage affected by AC?

Yes, and EV/SH help against it too.

[tasonir]

I would think that something with an insane stealth score might help? To give yourself more time before other things woke up while you're walking to #1? probably not enough to make a difference, because you can't pull mobs backwards...

Also, you could still dig murder holes, you'd just have to do it before you spot the mob, and the mob would have to wander all the way into the murder hole without you seeing it outside somewhere (make repeated loud noises?)...

[Sandman25]

Obviously Makhleb, obviously Axes, obviously DD.

Similar challenge - you should run away from everything that notices you: obviously Dith, obviously As, obviously Sp.

[and into]

I don't see how stealth would be useful for this challenge. You have to tab immediately upon seeing stuff. Aside from increasing stab damage, the purpose of stealth is so you can see stuff before it notices you, and avoid them or carefully draw them off singly without attracting attention from other things. The nature of the challenge makes stabbing incredibly unreliable, and completely negates the other use of stealth. Most spells and wands are useless, so you are going to focus on fighting, weapon skill, and damage mitigation. Which probably means as much AC + EV as you can muster, which likely means you'd be wearing a sufficiently heavy armor that you'd suffer a big stealth penalty anyway.

Also... What do you do about invisible monsters, and in particular unseen horrors? Is it automatic game over if you run into one without SInv?

(Some spells would still be useful—repel missiles due to how it now works, minion-making spells like animate skeleton/dead... Some other spells could still retain use if you were fine with extreme levels of tedium, e.g., keeping some temporary summons around constantly. Yuck. But in any case most spells would not be useful for the challenge.)

[Fungus]

On axes: What about Hydras?

On Deep Dwarf: Is damage shaving better than Gargoyle's AC+GDR+resting between fights?

Also... What do you do about invisible monsters, and in particular unseen horrors? Is it automatic game over if you run into one without SInv?

Since you can't see a monster, TAB wouldn't work, therefore you can move (or attack) as usual ("No target in sight!")

[zardo]

On Deep Dwarf: Is damage shaving better than Gargoyle's AC+GDR+resting between fights?

DD beats Gr HP aptitude by... is it really 4 (+2 vs -2)? That's a lot.

[and into]

Also... What do you do about invisible monsters, and in particular unseen horrors? Is it automatic game over if you run into one without SInv?

Since you can't see a monster, TAB wouldn't work, therefore you can move (or attack) as usual ("No target in sight!")

Ah yes, good point, that was covered in the rules you laid out.

[Leafsnail]

Polearms seem good for this. Moving one square less far towards everything could potentially reduce the number of monsters you pull in significantly.

[duvessa]

It will be 0.5 squares less on average against speed 10 monsters, actually.

[Patashu]

Polearms seem good for this. Moving one square less far towards everything could potentially reduce the number of monsters you pull in significantly.

Polearms' advantage requires you to use them cleverly. If all you're doing is tabbing, then it doesn't give you much.

[Bloax]

You're forgetting that you'll likely end up tabbing some monster's summons, utterly helpless because said monster outright refuses to get near you because of all those summons - and it's even better if said monster goes invisible and you don't see invisible!
And that's why you go axes.

[Siegurt]

Ranged would be viable once you had enough arrows, Once you get ~200 arrows, you'll never run out before everything's dead.

[Fungus]

You're forgetting that you'll likely end up tabbing some monster's summons, utterly helpless because said monster outright refuses to get near you because of all those summons - and it's even better if said monster goes invisible and you don't see invisible!
And that's why you go axes.

Maybe Maces for Lair/Swamp then switch to Axes? How bad is it to cut off hydra heads if you have good defenses?

[Leafsnail]

It will be 0.5 squares less on average against speed 10 monsters, actually.

Against speed 10 melee monsters yeah I guess. Point still stands though.

[headcrab0803]

didnt qw win the game during the 0.14 tourney
well qw doesnt reposition(as far as I know) so maybe this tab challenge is also possible
of course qw uses berserk but still there might be a chance even without it

[Leafsnail]

I think qw also waits for monsters to come to it, which is substantially less stupid than running out at every enemy you see.

[Viashino_wizard]

Ah, but did he win?

Is LCS damage affected by AC?

Everything in the game is affected by AC unless it's special-cased not to. Besides weapon brands and (most) attack flavors, that's a small handful of spells (most notably Smite and the Hellfire variations).

[Patashu]

Ah, but did he win?

Is LCS damage affected by AC?

Everything in the game is affected by AC unless it's special-cased not to. Besides weapon brands and (most) attack flavors, that's a small handful of spells (most notably Smite and the Hellfire variations).

(misthank <.<)
And don't forget that lightning ignores half your AC.

[duvessa]

Multiplicative melee weapon brands also apply to the weapon's damage after checking AC, so AC does sort of apply to them - in fact, this actually makes AC prevent more damage than it would if it applied after the brand. Also, most attack flavours don't trigger at all on 0 damage hits.