The Tavern

I've spectated a couple gnollcrawl games and it occurred to me that it might be an ideal tool for teaching new players basic tactics like positioning, luring, and escaping. It gets rid of lots of shiny stuff that distracts from these lessons, and it starts off hard.

I played gnollcrawl a little. I think it's only possible (or at least reasonable) with fast/frail characters with renewable ranged attacks (like SpVM or CeHu^Trog/Oka (for the ammo gifts)). being at melee range with even one gnoll is risky.

I have only beaten gnollcrawl with melee character, although that doesn't change that you must be careful about when you melee. Play as Spriggan or Centaur berserker, poke gnolls without polearms to death with spear, berserk(or use hex wand once you find one) vs. gnolls with polearm. I'm sure it's possible as non-fast character, but surely much harder.

Additionally, if you have the patience, going Fedhas can net you an easy victory(if you have 2 max MP to use evolution with) because wandering mushrooms demolish gnolls. I am doing a 15 rune run for kicks like this atm, after that I will try winning as non-fast, non-ranged character.

what's your plan for hell effects?

Oh, I decided to not do hell because if any direct damage hell effect happened it would just gib me with no recourse

if dracunos changes that I will get another 15 rune win to replace my 11. and maybe scum for a cloak of invis so I can complete a zig

Main lesson of gnollcrawl is that crawl is much better without food.

Also, much better without soft lair requirement.

e: To expand on the last bit a little, the game is radically cleaner and better when you're not autotraveling around to achieve the optimal floor order. Branches were a mistake.

isnt pan really really really bad in gnollcrawl? with fiends spawning?

I imagine fiends don't spawn in gnollcrawl.

Gnollcrawl only has gnolls. I checked.

There was actually an oversight in the first pass(iirc) of gnollcrawl which meant in some places you would get enemies like ice fiends and seraphs

Time to add gnollspawn...

That's why Yiuf spends so much time in the shed.