Challenge game: Follow a bad guide

[tasonir]

So with my streak of transmuters ending after 3, I've decided to look to something else for inspiration: bad guides. Up first I want to do the staff of earth minotaur: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/ARCHIVED_Bu ... ster_guide

Because it could in theory work, eventually. I mean, if there was never any silver lining, it'd just be painful. I'm probably not going to do the old mummy guide that involved god transitions, I don't even think the guide still exists. It has to have some possible upside

So the first step is to parse the guide into rules that have to be followed:

He mentions "you may be gifted one [a lajatang] by trog or okawaru", which makes you think he may recommend trog, but the guide also says "Also, as was wisely pointed out, you probably don't want to pick Trog for this build, as he'll take exception to your dabbling in magic, even as much as you will never actually use it." so I don't think trog is ultimately recommended. Okawaru and Makhleb are the other two recommendations, so you must take one of these two gods. I'll probably take Okawaru, but I may change my mind.

Skill training: Mentions "First and foremost, focus all your effort on your ‘staves’ skill" and also focusing armor/dodging "right from the beginning". Not sure how to parse this. I think I'll just turn on all three and train them up equally? Would also be valid to train only staves to 14 and then train armor/dodging exclusively. Fighting isn't mentioned, but the end game skill list includes fighting 27, so clearly training fighting at some point is valid. Shields are listed as 10, but he correctly lists the requirement as 5 for buckler, 15 for shield, so I assume he's just averaging the two cases.

Acquirement: Must be used for staves if you don't already have staff of earth. Train earth magic to level 6 before using. Equip staff of earth at 10 evo 10 earth.

Less clear rule: are you allowed to actually cast buff spells? Can I pick up regeneration, haste? Should I go spelless, aside from the earth spell required to train earth?

If I succeed at this, I'll probably play a bunch of transmuters to try transmuter streaking again, but when that ends, I'll probably look for more bad guides. Feel free to post any recommended guides, or even parse them for rules if you're so motivated.

[Sandman25]

Following a bad strategy guide with good tactics and powerful combo is not that hard IMHO. Do we have a guide with advices like "Never read scroll of teleportation" or "Always use tab when you see a monster"?

[WingedEspeon]

How old is the sfatt of earth mi guide? I think at one point staff of earth ingored ac making it ok for melee. "Never read scroll of teleportation" is easy if your allowed to read id it: just play Fo.

[tasonir]

Yeah, I'm not expecting this to be extremely difficult - you are a minotaur after all. I wanted to pick something semi-reasonable. It's basically just a no magic minotaur who has to use an odd, exp-heavy weapon. Not claiming it's impossible

Seemed easier than doing the infamous Mummy of Kiku -> Sif: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/ARCHIVED_Ca ... zard_guide

Some archived guides are actually still pretty good, like http://crawl.chaosforge.org/ARCHIVED_De ... ncer_guide. Rules would just be DDNe, use vamp draining, use axes, and worship makhleb. Some things like twisted resurrection no longer exist, and after saying to take makhleb there's a reference to kiku corpse delivery, but assuming you just use makhleb it doesn't have much wrong in it. Maybe one day I'll remove the outdated parts and slap a shiny .16 (or .17) sticker on it.

[xentronium]

For the Minotaur with earth staff, your skills on ascending should also follow the guide:
(which is really weird for following Trog or Okawaru).

  Code:

By the time you ascend, your skills might well look something like this

Fighting -> 27
Staves -> 14
Throwing ->2
Armor-> 27
Dodging -> 27
Shields ->10
Invocations ->3
Evocations-> 20
Earth magic ->22

[Hirsch I]

well, I tried to make slime trolls work quite a lot of times. had a lot of fun too.

[tasonir]

Having read over a bunch of other guides, the ones that seemed interesting to try to follow were spriggan poison arrow spam and slime troll (as hirsch mentioned). Slime troll would probably be more fun to play, but suffers from the problem of finding a jiyva altar, which the author admits is hard to do. I've done a few trolls of jiyva before, and there isn't really much strange tactical advice other than recommending that you summon a jelly swarm upon entering a floor. As much as I hate kiting, spriggan poison arrow spammer might be more interesting. The guide mentions that it got nerfed in .6 (the guide appears to have been written before this) so it's clearly not as powerful as the guide initially makes it sound ("Kill pan lords in 4 hits!"). Still, I think it's at currently 30% unresistable damage, so it should in theory work. You can't ensure you get it every game from vehumet, but there's a good chance you will with high enough poison skill. Not a flaw of the guide as of it being written, just a consequence of it being outdated.

[Pollen_Golem]

Would you consider these simple bad guides:
CeSu of Xom. Rule: keep Nemelex wrath up at all times, refreshing if necessary.
GhGl of Kiku. Rule: train necro but never put any points into intelligence.

[Sandman25]

GhGl of Kiku. Rule: train necro but never put any points into intelligence.

What's so bad about it? Pain brand is as useful with low Int.

[Pollen_Golem]

As are Corpse Rot and Animate Skeleton/Dead, but at INT 3 you'll never get much power out of other necro spells.

[Sandman25]

As are Corpse Rot and Animate Skeleton/Dead, but at INT 3 you'll never get much power out of other necro spells.

Replace Gh with Mi. Is it still that bad?

[Pollen_Golem]

It feels weird, being criticized for not being bad enough.

[Sandman25]

Check thread title.

[tasonir]

Keeping nemelex wrath up seems very tedious...You'd have to keep going back to the altar and abandoning him? You'd interrupt your Xom worship, with lots of backtracking.

Ghoul necromancer who can't raise int seems more in line with a bad guide restriction. It can still be made to work, of course, and it might be a bit too simple. all you're really saying is play a ghoul with slightly less exp, since you dumped some into necromancy. When you get the pain weapon, it becomes worthwhile again too, so it isn't even a permanent loss.

[Sandman25]

Problem with GhGl of Kiku is that ignoring spells is optimal play with that low Int and Dex IMHO. Also Gh has 0 aptitude in necromancy and every skill level in Necromancy increases damage by 1 for pain brand. It reminds UC a little, maybe that's why you like it, tasonir

[Pollen_Golem]

Keeping nemelex wrath up seems very tedious...You'd have to keep going back to the altar and abandoning him? You'd interrupt your Xom worship, with lots of backtracking.

How long does it take wrath to subside? About five experience levels? You'd only have to do the switcheroo a small handful of times - in a few-rune game at least. That sounds tedious but not very tedious. More tedious would be the banishments you'd have to suffer repeatedly.

What if you join and abandon Nemelex ten times in a row, without leaving the temple? Will wrath last any longer than joining and abandoning once?

[mikee]

A while ago, the other irc elitists and I created wikirobin for following wiki advice. I think the only game we ever played was spen of tso, which was terrible. I have a hard time understanding how people are physically capable of writing this shit.

[tasonir]

character posted at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=16236

it's going far too easily and it's kind of funny. Found staff of earth on D:10 and had a ridiculous +9 lajatang of flaming.

Wikirobin is basically exactly this thread, although I've always prefered to play characters on my own account rather than share them with strangers. I think you can get diseases that way Guess I wasn't the first one with this idea, not that I mind!

[Turukano]

In another recent topic I mentioned a dubious MiBe "guide". You can add some rules from this "guide" to your games if you like:

• Early game phase [...] Turn everything off except for Maces & Flails. Spam tab and o and clear out the first few floors of dungeon. Yeah, most times you will do something stupid and die to something that you shouldn't have tab spammed but you wouldn't really have anything good anyways.
• Do not drink any potions till you find potion of mutation using identify scroll. [This inludes ofc that you must not drink one of these 10 unid' potions when you are heavily poisoned and have 1 HP remaining!]
• Don't bother identifying enchanted armour or weapons if you happen to find one in early games. If they are really badly cursed, just press cntrl Q and restart the game unless you have whole bunch of scrolls of remove curse.

Another rule from another "guide" (I don't remember what it was):

• Don't enchant your weapon to more than +2 (because you could need the enchant scrolls for a trove).

************

EDIT: This piece of advice is in the ogre hunter "guide".

Switch to progressively better maces along your path to the Temple, until you get a giant spiked club from a monster Ogre. Enchant it to +2, vorpalize if you find a scroll. Save the rest of your enchant weapon scrolls for a potential treasure trove fee.

[Turukano]

...

[Sprucery]

Another rule from another "guide" (I don't remember what it was):

• Don't enchant your weapon to more than +2 (because you could need the enchant scrolls for a trove).

I wonder if any guide recommends saving the first two scrolls of acquirement for a possible Trove.

[Sar]

Not a guide, but I've seen advices to save your acquirement so many times. For troves, for a chance of getting a better wand or weapon by identifying more junk ones, in case you'll find a bazaar with an expensive item inside...

[xentronium]

Antimagic weapon on a VSBe. Totally lock down enemy spellcasters.

[tasonir]

Another rule from another "guide" (I don't remember what it was):

• Don't enchant your weapon to more than +2 (because you could need the enchant scrolls for a trove).

I wonder if any guide recommends saving the first two scrolls of acquirement for a possible Trove.

I've already got a stricter conduct: using the staff of earth, it's impossible to enchant it, so all of my scrolls are saved!

I've decided I'm not allowed to use any ranged weapons aside from throwing nets, although I am going to allow myself to use evocables, after all, you're supposed to train evocations to 20ish. So I have entirely 0 (non-trove) uses for enchant weapon...

Not a guide, but I've seen advices to save your acquirement so many times. For troves, for a chance of getting a better wand or weapon by identifying more junk ones

Dunno, sometimes I'll do this, for wands. I'm usually following chei and so I'm primarily looking for heal wounds. Waiting until I finish orc/lair doesn't hurt much, because I assume I still have 2-4 heal wounds potions, so it's not like I can't heal if I needed to. I'm not interested in getting a wand of fire, and while teleport is a good wand to have, I probably still have teleport scrolls as well, so waiting a bit doesn't really cost anything, if you're going to pick wands. For non-chei characters, hasting wands can also be covered by potions of haste, but those are a good bit more rare, so having the wand is a more meaningful increase in supply.

[duvessa]

Another rule from another "guide" (I don't remember what it was):

• Don't enchant your weapon to more than +2 (because you could need the enchant scrolls for a trove).

I wonder if any guide recommends saving the first two scrolls of acquirement for a possible Trove.

I've already got a stricter conduct: using the staff of earth, it's impossible to enchant it, so all of my scrolls are saved!

I've decided I'm not allowed to use any ranged weapons aside from throwing nets, although I am going to allow myself to use evocables, after all, you're supposed to train evocations to 20ish. So I have entirely 0 (non-trove) uses for enchant weapon...

you can use it to enchant needles of sickness to make them last longer

[Pollen_Golem]

Maybe he spent all those enchant weapon scrolls on throwing nets, in those old versions.

[Pollen_Golem]

Keeping nemelex wrath up seems very tedious...You'd have to keep going back to the altar and abandoning him?

You can also use wizmode to refresh nemelex wrath. With an honor code.

[Cheibrodos]

I've been out of the scene, is it still possible to do a VpTm^Jiyva that transmutes by staying engorged?

[tasonir]

I've been out of the scene, is it still possible to do a VpTm^Jiyva that transmutes by staying engorged?

Should be possible yes, transmutations function at "full" and higher.