Conduct: Never deal damage except by ranged weaponry

[tasonir]

This has been something of a perennial favorite topic, of people who want to play strictly "archer" characters. There was recently a 'hunter' god proposal based on this premise (and it's hardly the first one). It's generally trivial to play primarily ranged characters, although the general advice is to train a melee weapon to conserve ammo on popcorn. This is correct and the proposed conduct of dealing no damage at all through melee (or otherwise) is intended to be restrictive.

Goal of the thread: While I imagine there will be some discussion of the concept, I'd like to try to keep the thread "dense" with actual morgues of people either losing or winning with the conduct. There isn't terribly much to discuss that isn't already widely agreed upon: Yes, using a melee weapon to conserve ammo is smart, and we're intentionally avoiding that. Yes, going Okawaru is likely ideal/required, with Trog being another choice. Remember you can't benefit from berserk (except maybe to run 3 spaces to stairs) since we're banned from attacking in melee. It may also be a good idea to train more than one launcher type in order to have access to more ammo. Throwing weapons are allowed. All melee attacks, spells that deal damage (including summons), and wands/evokables are banned. Support magic is allowed (blink, regen, portal projectile, etc). God abilities are allowed, but since you're likely going to be with Okawaru, none of its abilities deal direct damage. I suppose we might want to ban god abilities which deal direct damage, if someone really wanted to cheese the game with apocalypse, that isn't really an 'archer'.

It may be a mistake for me to post this today when I likely won't be trying it for a few days, but maybe someone else might be willing to throw in a few morgues, so here goes.

[duvessa]

All melee attacks, spells that deal damage (including summons), and wands/evokables are banned.

Does this mean I can use the Confuse spell but not wands of confusion or digging? Can I use LRD as long as I don't actually hit anything with it?

[tasonir]

Good point - I mean wands which deal damage - so digging and confusion would be allowed. LRD for just breaking walls (basically as dig) would probably be okay, although it would make the morgues a bit less clear - you wouldn't be able to prove you didn't hit anything with it. Still, if you only had <10 casts of LRD, you probably didn't kill much with it. Likewise I'd discourage using confuse near deep water/lava to try to drown monsters (I think this is still possible), but I'm assuming it's not likely that someone will attempt to drown hundreds of monsters to save on ammo.

[bel]

I don't think this would be too difficult. It's probably most convenient to use slings at the beginning; that way, one can always use stones as ammo if required.

[yesno]

i guess any conduct can be a challenge, but i've never thought of 'archer' as 'person who doesn't ever execute a melee attack" before, so i find the appeal of this idea confusing. at least the "i only cast spells" idea makes sense if you have in mind a wizard who is fussy or frail scholar. but an archer is a soldier who does grisly stuff. even legolas has swords in her famous epic film called "elf movie"

[duvessa]

Obviously this conduct is completely trivial, but I figured I should prove it since I apparently partially inspired it. Here's the morgue. I thought adding antiskillrobin conduct and using no god abilities might make it more interesting, I was wrong.
The only wand zaps were digging, no allies were created, and no holy word or torment was read. The only challenge to doing this conduct is that you need SInv as soon as possible in order to autoexplore, otherwise you have to manually explore to avoid making melee attacks against unseen horrors and shadow wraiths (I was lucky enough to find it early on my first try). You also need to avoid accidentally reading a scroll of summoning but that's really easy, just don't read unidentified scrolls that you picked up on d:4 or later.

Also training a melee skill on ranged chars is always a bad idea imo.

[chequers]

It seems you need to get an early Okawaru altar too.

[duvessa]

Not really, there are enough stones to clear early D without god gifts. Or you could just altar dive.

[nago]

The really wow thing of that morgue is that Oka actually gave 3 very good gifts in the same game

[Rast]

legolas

her

Well meme'd, sir.

[tasonir]

So I've been playing terribly lately and have mostly managed to kill off characters that really shouldn't be dying, but here's a barachi hunter who died to Nessos: http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/Tason ... 064014.txt

And a demonspawn hunter who died to orc sorceror paralysis (with a ring of magic resistance, no less): http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/Tason ... 085326.txt

I've somewhat limited myself in that I don't want to play centaurs for this, so I've been trying to play 'interesting' races, including several octopodes, but still, I probably shouldn't have died so much. I did have one game where I was definitely having trouble due to no stones generating on d:1 or d:2, which severely limited my ability to fight and follow the conduct, but in 9 games out of 10 I haven't had any trouble finding enough ammo early on (I usually get up to 100+ stones by d:4 or 5) so I'd say this is definitely possible. Haven't yet gone all the way to the end, but between using slings early on, and then switching to bows (or possibly crossbows) there's generally plenty of ammo that I don't think running out late game will be an issue, and it wasn't for duvessa. Okawaru gifts a lot of ammo over the course of an entire game...

Both of the above characters had over 300 arrows in inventory (and would have shot many of them at the enemies they were fighting when they died to later reclaim), quite a lot for only lair/orc deaths. I'm pretty satisfied that using melee to conserve ammo isn't required, although imho it remains useful for convenience, and might be important in the case that you don't take okawaru/trog.

[stoneychips]

i guess any conduct can be a challenge, but i've never thought of 'archer' as 'person who doesn't ever execute a melee attack" before, so i find the appeal of this idea confusing. at least the "i only cast spells" idea makes sense if you have in mind a wizard who is fussy or frail scholar. but an archer is a soldier who does grisly stuff. even legolas has swords in her famous epic film called "elf movie"

I've never thought of an archer as someone who'd never use wands, especially in Crawl where for most characters (except conjurers), I find wands about the most obvious artillery boost around... To my mind, wands have always been "ranged" so taking them out is just really artificial. Particularly now that the yellow ones are not around.

Anyway with multiple types of launchers plus throwing it should be quite doable. I've had some centaurs and halflings and that ended up going this way much of the time, though not usually strictly so.

[tasonir]

Yeah the intention was more so to test the pressure on ammo supply - but you're right it might be somewhat unnecessary. Especially now that rods are gone, you can't generally recharge wands indefinitely, so they are of limited use. Technically my DSHu failed the test because it evolved demonic guardian, although by the time I died it was still only rank 1, so they didn't deal all that much damage. They were, however, really good at wasting enemy turns/soaking up damage. The hardest part about that character is that I had evolved claws 1 on level 2 and claws 2 on level 3. The temptation to just go unarmed was so strong. I got claws 3 at level 6, too.

[stoneychips]

Totally classic death of mostly OP character to hubris, but it was hilarious. Kobold hunter.

Agile creatures (wolves, blink frogs) and ghosts were a pain. Early ogres and orc warriors were the usual close calls.

+9 triple crossbow of Penetration, boots with +6 slaying, 16 base crossbows skill at end.

Died to miscalculation (and general self annoyance, panic! haha) with death yaks on Lair 4. Also was stupid enough to try tree form there (so the morgue was pretty opaque for stats).

Technically, used a couple bursts of wand of random effects versus an otherwise whopping player ghost early on (almost nuked self in the process but not quite).

Almost ran completely out of ammo (15ish bolts and only 50 stones) fighting packs on D:3. More started showing up on D:4-D:5.

No altar for Oka til D:8

Major shortage of identify scrolls in this game btw. Should have quaff ID'd potions but was in such a groove... Blew just a couple scrolls on wands early on (was then thinking to play more conventionally with wands) but then hardly used em. Woulld have been easy for a stretch longer with serious use of consumables, but was hilarious.

[stickyfingers]

Done with a CeHu of Oka. I also did the antiskillrobin conduct, as well as no god abilities or any evokable uses or spells. Didn't find an Oka altar until after exploring D:6 (Temple was in a secluded part of D:5 that I skipped), then struggled with arrow count until Oka started gifting, was down to like 18 at some points. I was also using a crappy unbranded shortbow until Oka decided to grant an artefact +6 longbow of flaming, that I used all game from then on. For some reason all further longbow gifts also had flaming brand, except the last one already in Zot. Speaking of it, I went full stupid and took a hatch to Z:5, as all three hatches were in a vault, and it landed me near the Orb. I managed to grab it and start frantically teleport around, after like 4 tries (and all ?fears, multiple !hastes, !HWs, !resists, ?fogs and !invis), which lasted way too long for comfort, I managed to run to an upward hatch to safety... except now there was a player ghost there, and a Pan lord with many draconians soon joined the fun. It again took a lot of consumables, but luckily I managed to get to the staircase that led to that vault enclosed with transparent stone with both staircases, so I was in safe haven now and could heal. The rest of the orb run was uneventful.

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.21-a0-111-g52d2817 (console) character file.

1547289 stickyfingers the Merry Centaur (level 25, 248/257 HPs)
             Began as a Centaur Hunter on July 11, 2017.
             Was the Champion of Okawaru.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 3 runes!
             
             The game lasted 06:36:31 (78326 turns).

stickyfingers the Merry Centaur (Centaur Hunter)   Turns: 78326, Time: 06:36:33

Health: 248/257    AC: 53    Str: 29    XL:     25   Next: 58%
Magic:  32/32      EV:  9    Int: 17    God:    Okawaru [******]
Gold:   4100       SH:  0    Dex: 17    Spells: 24/24 levels left

rFire    + . .     SeeInvis +   a - +6 longbow {flame, Str+3 Int+4}
rCold    + + .     Gourm    .   (shield currently unavailable)
rNeg     . . .     Faith    .   M - +9 scales of the Dragon King {rPois rF+ rC+ MR+}
rPois    +         Spirit   .   z - +2 helmet
rElec    .         Reflect  .   k - +2 cloak {MR+}
rCorr    .         Harm     +   F - +2 pair of gloves {archery}
MR       +++..     Clarity  +   n - +4 centaur barding of the Lion {rPois rC+ MR- Dex+4}
Stlth    ..........             q - amulet "Gedaedew" {Harm *Drain MR+ MP+9 Str+2 Int+3}
HPRegen  0.52/turn              m - +5 ring of evasion
MPRegen  0.23/turn              w - ring of see invisible

@: very quick
A: hooves 3, clarity, deformed body, speed 2, sense surroundings 1, tough skin
3, subdued magic 1
0: Orb of Zot
}: 3/15 runes: decaying, slimy, gossamer
a: Heroism, Finesse, Renounce Religion

http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/st ... 193515.txt

[duvessa]

  Code:

       Reflection        |       |       |     3 |     4 |       |       |       |       |       ||     7

CHEATER

[stickyfingers]

Damn it, will have to go through the whole ordeal again.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I wonder why you used blowgun so much during some XL. Saving ammo?

[stickyfingers]

Yes.